tics are in such illimitable request. Were no facilities offered for exporting slaves, the colonists of Senegal and Goree could have no motive for desiring to retain the privilege (privilege!) of purchasing natives. But the question of local convenience or inconvenience, has not the weight of a feather with us. Africa can never be civilized, nor can the slave trade be effectually suppressed, while any European colony whatever claims the right of purchasing new negroes. The miseries which this bloody traffic has always inflicted upon the interior of Africa are sufficiently known to the world, from the disclosures which took place in the course of the abolition controversy. These miseries, France, by means of this disgraceful licence to her African colonies, perpetuates and extends. A gentleman writes from Senegal:

"The agriculture of the country is annihilated. The slave trade has introduced a state of continual war among different tribes, as well as between kings and their subjects, and has thus destroyed the numerous sources of riches which Africa offers to the industry of Europeans. St Louis remains in the same state in which it was half a century ago. A proprietor of fifty slaves, whose wife is decked out in jewels, is destitute of the most useful and common necessaries. He waits till they shall bring for his use, from Europe, even sugar, tobacco, rice, potatoes, onions, &c. &c. If during the last ten years, agricultural establishments had been formed upon the coast of Senegal, St. Louis would at this time have been a rich colony. Cultivation might be carried on there with the greatest success: rice, cotton, and indigo, grow every where spontaneously, as well as many other plants, which would prove an always increasing source of prosperity. It is said, that the air of the interior is fatal to Europeans; but this, I must add, is partly in consequence of our own conduct. Since Europeans have chased the Blacks like wild beasts, these unfortunate people have fled as far as they could from the reach of their barbarous enemies. They have abandoned the banks of the river, which they inhabited before our arrival, and forests have usurped the place of cultivated fields. Upon the banks of the Niger, where the Europeans have not yet extended their dominion, the whole population are still engaged in agriculture. The expedition which set out on the 17th of August for Galam (a country about 300 leagues from this place) was preceded by three armed brigs. Upon their approach, the Foulahs (inhabitants of the Foulah country, whence comes the millet necessary for the consumption of St. Louis) fled into the interior, abandoning their towns situated near the river. In a former expedition to Galam, just before the late war, the French, after having surprised several towns, seized upon six hundred Foulahs, and sent them off to America, having first masacred all those of their relations whom they did not think likely to sell well. It is to be hoped, that these unfortunate people will quit the retreat to which they have fled among tigers and lions, when they shall know that we mean no longer to make them slaves.

Unfortunately, our conduct, even to this day, has produced a contrary impression. The higher we ascend the Senegal, the better cultivated is the country." Thirteenth Report of the African Institution, p. 101, 102.

The pamphlet of M. Giudicelly, late préfét Apostolique of Senegal (No. 10, on our list), and the two petitions of M. Morenas "Membre de la Commission d'exploration attachée à la Colonie du Senegal," to the French legislature fearfully confirm this account. We shall give only one single passage from M. Giudicelly, which the reader will find at p. 22-24 of his pamphlet. The following is a translation :

"I will give you also, sir, some details respecting the massacre which M. Morenas states to have taken place in the village Diaman. Going into the house of a native, a neighbour of mine, where they had purchased a female of twenty years of age, captured on that occasion, I learnt from her, that not being able to escape, on account of a wound in her foot, the Moors had made her a slave, and, at the time they seized her, stabbed in her arms an infant five months old; that her father had been killed in defending the village; but that her husband, who had been out a hunting, her eldest daughter, and her mother, had been saved. This Negress was much affected by my inquiries; and it was with difficulty I prevailed upon her to accept some trifling aid. It was necessary often to repeat-perhaps, after all, without convincing her-that all the Whites were not alike, and that most of them abhorred such atrocities. Why then,' she eagerly exclaimed, bursting at the same time into a flood of tears- Why, then, do they not prevent them?”

"The destruction of this village was the signal for such horrid excesses as I could scarcely have suspected cannibals to have been capable of committing. Upon the Senegal, in the streets of St. Louis, in the surrounding country, every Negro who was a stranger and unprotected, was seized, sold, and shipped off. How often have I heard the outcries of these unfortunate beings, who, during the night, were struggling with their kidnappers!

"In the beginning of the year 1818, King Damel encamped with about three thousand cavalry and infantry, and a thousand Moors, at the vilage of Gandiole, three leagues from St. Louis. I went to see this barbarian, who, during six months of that year, was occupied in carrying fire and sword into the different parts of his kingdom. To whom was it that he sold the thousands of his subjects whom he made slaves? They were all transported to the West Indies from Senegal or Goree."

But after all, dreadful as are the specific facts which we have related, it is the principle, the example, the legal toleration of the trade, and the facilities thence afforded for its illegal extension, that are most to be deplored. While any one nation allows the traffic, either like France locally, in Africa, or like Portugal partially, to supply the Western colonies, in vain will

all others condemn it; for one single weak point in the bulwarks raised against this desolation of humanity, will continue to render the whole of the entrenchments insecure. As long as slaves may be legally carried across the Atlantic, or even be legally purchased in Africa, were it but in one single degree of latitude, it will be extremely difficult to fix any actual boundaries to the evil; for the utmost vigilance can scarcely guard against a fraudulent use of the single remaining licit flag, or prevent slaves from being smuggled from port to port, and island to island, till they find their unhappy way wherever lawless cupidity sees fit to open channels for their reception.

The powers assembled at the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle felt this point so strongly, that they agreed to make a solemn and joint appeal to the King of Portugal to induce him wholly to abolish the traffic. The letters of these powers being presented to his Most Faithful Majesty, he addressed a reply to the court of St. James's (a duplicate, we presume, of the replies sent to the other powers), which we lament to say, so far as it is intelligible, seems to indicate a wish to postpone the abolition of the Portuguese slave trade, South of the Line, to an indefinite period. The only facts asserted in it, namely, that his Portuguese Majesty had succeeded in causing his subjects to observe the stipulations of the treaty abolishing the traffic north of the line, and that the trade in general had much decreased, are contradicted, it is feared, by incontrovertible evidence. It remains to be seen, whether under the new system of government, the same pertinacity will be exhibited by Portugal in clinging to this execrable trade, which has hitherto been evinced. We are not over-sanguine on this point.

We trust, however, that what Portugal does not at present seem inclined to do from her own prompt volition, and in accordance with her solemn pledge, (given at the congress of Vienna), she will feel it necessary to put in force, from respect to the just remonstrances of indignant Europe. Our own government, in par ticular, has employed very urgent applications on this subject, but hitherto without effect. Nothing can to us be clearer than the justice, as well as the policy of continuing and strengthening these remonstrances, till the object of them is attained. It is not less humiliating than afflicting, to behold this single state frustrating the wishes, and blasting the hopes of the whole civilized world, by its obstinate retention of a traffic, which even itself has officially acknowledged to be an evil; which, moreover, it has already been constrained to abolish in part; and which the best and wisest men of all countries have again and again decided ought to be wholly and for ever suppressed. The same remarks apply in their measure to the French allowed colonial slave trade; which,

to say the least, is quite as great an evil to Africa, as the Algerine piracies are to Europe. We are indeed far from wishing to see my Lord Exmouth bombarding the négréries of Senegal or Goree, as he did the fort of Algiers, but we put it to our continental neighbours themselves to determine, whether, if a negro jury were to decide the cause, they would not be thought quite as richly to deserve it.

It gives us pleasure to learn that some efforts have been made to call the attention of the French, Portuguese, and other nations, to the real nature and evils of the slave-trade, by circulating among them suitable publications on the subject. It will be truly consoling to us to find that these humane exertions have proved effectual, in exciting on the Continent a similiar spirit cn this great question to that which happily prevails in our own country, and which must, sooner or later, be attended to by those who legislate and those who rule. But thus to enlighten a nation, to correct its prejudices, and to induce it to prefer its duty to its supposed interest, is not a task of speedy accomplishment; many thousands of miserable human beings will be torn from their homes and condemned to hopeless bondage while it is in operation. The press, however, presents a powerful engine, of which the advocates of humanity ought diligently to avail themselves to effect their benevolent purpose. Some of the publications before us, or others of a similar kind, might be circulated on the Continent in different languages with great advantage to the cause of humanity; and we understand that the African Institution has been diligently using its limited means to effect this object. Those means, however, are far too scanty to meet the exigencies of the case; and we shall take the liberty to state, in passing, that we know not at the present moment of any one benevolent object or benevolent institution which more needs, and better deserves the liberality of the public. This Institution was formed' soon after the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain, with a view to lay a foundation for the civilization of Africa, and also to prevent the practical frustration of the abolition by the lawless practices of mercenary adventurers. To the unwearied efforts of this much abused society, the world is indebted for almost all that has been actually effected for the extinction of the traffic. The obloquy which has been cast upon it by the avowed or secret friends of that direful scourge, the slave trade, is to our minds its best panegyric, and proves that its exertions have been eminently serviceable, both in enforcing the observance of the abolition laws enacted in Great Britain, and in procuring the adoption of similar measures in other countries. As we are not ourselves in any way connected with the Institution, this passing testimony to its merits and utility, extorted from us by a review

of its humane, enlightened, and truly seasonable exertions, will, we trust, not appear misplaced. It is a subject of astonishment to us that the benevolent efforts of an institution of such vast importance, and without whose exertions the various enactments of Europe against the slave trade would have been of little practical value, should have been so lamentably crippled, as we find from its Reports they have been, for want of funds. The services. of the Institution deserve to be widely known, and its efforts liberally supported; especially at the present moment, when the extension of the foreign, and particularly the French slave trade, calls for renewed vigilance on the part of every friend of hu manity to suppress the evil. The inadequacy of the funds of this Institution to its truly important and interesting objects, has not, however, arisen, we are persuaded, from apathy in the public respecting the slave trade, but from a widely extended supposition that the traffic has long ago received its death-stroke, and is nearly extinct, a supposition, we regret to say, quite at variance with the documented facts of the case. We strongly recommend to our readers a perusal of the reports of this Institution, which are very valuable on account of the important facts and powerful statesman-like arguments which they contain, independently of their immediate reference to the cause of injured Africa.

But it is not enough that the slave trade is at length nearly abolished upon paper; nor will it even be enough that the abolition is rendered universal and complete: for while the demand for slaves in the western world, and consequently the temptations. to procure them, shall continue, the mere promulgation of prohibitory edicts, unaccompanied by active measures to enforce them, will be of little avail. The tolerated traffic of Portugal, to the south of the equator, deeply as it is to be deplored, is, at the present moment, but one among many items in the black catalogue of the slave trade. As the European public in general are not aware of the actual extent of the evil; and as some persons, especially in France, have affected to doubt, whether, after all, it is of any alarming magnitude, we shall think it right to lay before our readers a few well-authenticated facts, to which if they wish for further information, they may add many more

of a similar kind from the documents before us.

The following passage from an official report of Sir George Collier, dated Sept. 16, 1820, to the lords of the Admiralty, will furnish a general view of the subject:

"My public letters, reciting a variety of atrocious facts, will, I trust, have satisfied their lordships, that this more than ever cruelly conducted slave trade is, contrary to their anxious expectations, far from being on the decline. I therefore feel it my duty, before I con