new territories would diminish so rapidly that it would require to be replenished yearly from Africa. In this way a vast additional stimulus would be given to slavery and the slave trade.

It seems, then, to be clear, both from all we know of the usual laws of commerce, and of the demands of Cuba and Brazil, that were the slave trade relieved from the weight of our repressive system, it must inevitably spring up with redoubled force and elasticity. This conclusion is so irresistible, that it hardly seems necessary to support it by evidence; and we may observe, that scarcely a single witness of any authority has thrown a doubt upon it. Among those who have spoken of the services of the squadron, we may mention Capt. Watson, who says that, were the cruisers removed, the slave trade would export a much greater amount than two to one of the present number of negroes;' Capt. Wyvill, R. N. (Q. 3,507.); Capt. Denman (Q. 305.); Capt. Forsham (a trader) (Q. 4,586. ;) Capt. Mansell, an avowed sceptic on the efficiency of the squadron, but who nevertheless acknowledges (Q. 4,636.) I have no doubt that there would be a very great extension of the slave trade temporarily, if the squadron were removed.' He explains the word 'temporarily' by adding, that the limit to the time would be when the trade was perfectly satiated.' Mr. Joseph Smith, a native African, states, that the pressure of the English cruisers has a very great effect upon the people were it not for that, the amount of the slave trade would be much increased.' Mr. Hutton, an African merchant of thirty-five years' experience in the trade, thinks that if the squadron were withdrawn, the slave trade would increase throughout the coast of Africa.' The Rev. James Schön, whose acquaintance with Africa extends over a period of sixteen years, has no hesitation in saying that the slave trade would rapidly increase as a matter of course.' Mr. Macgregor Laird ‡; Mr. Duncan §, the African traveller; Mr. W. Smith ||, formerly Commissary Judge at Sierra Leone; Mr. Horsefall ¶, an African merchant; Mr. Moore **, a Brazilian merchant; the Rev. E. Jones (who states that the slave trade would be tripled by it); the Rev. H. Townsend, missionary at Abbeokouta; the Rev. H. Waddell, missionary at Calabar; the Rev. C. Gollmer, missionary at Sierra Leone, all more or less concur in stating, that the cruisers hold back the slave trade, and that were they removed it would receive an almost incalculable increase. So,

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* Q. 2,595.
Q. 3,830.

too, Mr. Hook, Commissary Judge at Sierra Leone; Capt. Riley, R. N.*; Dr. Keogh†; Capt. Chads, R. N. Capt. Chads told the Lords' Committee that at first there would be an immense export; after that time, there would be a constant and regular demand.' Mr. Kennedy, Commissary Judge at Havannah, was of opinion that the trade would be renewed to as frightful an extent as ever;'t while Mr. Carr, Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, declared, with only more particularity, I think that from 200,000 to 300,000 persons would be shipped from the coast annually, if the slave trade were left 'open altogether to the Brazilians.'

Surely there is now no escaping from the conclusion, that, were the squadron withdrawn, the slave trade must receive a large and permanent increase. To what extent it may be difficult even to conjecture; but, judging from the evidence we have referred to, there seems too much reason to fear that within a few years it might rise to twice or thrice its present amount. We must remember that England has reduced the duties on all foreign, as well as on our own colonial, sugar; and that in proportion as facilities are given for replacing negroes when 'used up' by excessive labour, we are left to the ordeal of an experimentwhich has not as yet been tried, namely, the experiment how far free labour in tropical climates can compete, not with slavery alone, but with slavery resting upon a slave trade freed from all restraint. Should this combination afford the means of cheaper production, we must be prepared to see Europe in great measure supplied with sugar from slave-trading States;-while, as the demand for the produce of slave labour may be expected to enlarge year by year, so too will the demand for slaves enlarge, depriving Africa of all hope of future improvement, and condemning those vast regions for ever to misery and desolation.

This brings us to consider the probable results of that increase of the slave trade, which must follow the removal of the squadron: and, first, its results within the limits of Africa.

Many persons are deceived by their half knowledge on the subject of the Slave Trade. Its most obvious feature being the sufferings of the Middle Passage, upon this they exclusively fix their eye. But those more conversant with the subject know well, that the Middle Passage is but one act in a long drama of wickedness. That drama, ending with the cruelties of the planter in Cuba and Brazil, begins with scenes of horror in Africa, of which one or two pictures will sufficiently show what the slave trade is at its commencement.

* Q. 147.

† Q. 2,012.

Q. 27.

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Mr. Ashmun, agent of the American Colonial Society, writing from Liberia, mentions that a neighbouring chief had engaged to provide a cargo for a slaver: For this pur'pose, from the peaceable tribes around him, he singled out the Queahs, a small agricultural and trading people of most inoffensive character. His warriors were skilfully directed against the different hamlets; and, by making a simultaneous assault on the sleeping occupants in the dead of the night, they accom'plished, without difficulty or resistance, in one hour, the annihilation of the tribe; every adult man and woman being mur'dered-every hut fired! Very young children generally shared the fate of their parents; the boys and girls alone were reserved to supply the slaver.' He thus describes a part of the territory of Liberia, when first purchased by him many years ago:-Along this beautiful river (the St. Paul's) were formerly scattered, in Africa's better days, innumerable ⚫ native hamlets; and till within the last twenty years nearly 'the whole banks of the river, for one or two miles inland, were brought under that slight culture which obtains among the 'natives of the country. But the population has been wasted by the rage for trading in slaves, with which the constant presence of slave vessels and the introduction of foreign lux'uries have inspired them. The south bank of this river, and all the intervening country between it and the Mesurado, have been from this cause nearly desolated of inhabitants; a few detached and solitary plantations scattered at long in'tervals through the tract, just serve to interrupt the silence and relieve the gloom, which reigns over the whole region.' Volumes might be filled with similar pictures of the desolation produced in Africa by the slave trade; but we will only add the description given by Laird of the slave-collecting system as it was carried on near the confluence of the Niger and the Tschadda in 1832. He is giving an account of the incursions of the Felatahs: - Scarcely a night passed but we heard the screams of some 'unfortunate beings that were carried off into slavery by these 'villanous depredators. The inhabitants of the towns in the 'route of the Felatahs fled across the river on the approach of 'the enemy. A few days after the arrival of the fugitives, a 'column of smoke rising in the air, about five miles above the 'confluence of the rivers, marked the advance of the Felatahs; 'and, in two days afterwards, the whole of the towns, six or 'seven in number, were in a blaze. The shrieks of the unfor'tunate captives were answered by the loud wailings and 'lamentations of their friends and relations from the opposite 'bank of the river; and the destruction of their habitations

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1850.

Its Effect on Africa.

251

'produced a scene, which, though common in this miserable 'country, had seldom, if ever before, been witnessed by European eyes, and which showed me, in a striking light, the 'horrors attendant upon the slave trade.' In weighing the consequence of a removal of the squadron, we assuredly ought to bear in mind' not only the increased miseries of the slave trade where it now exists, but also the devastation which its introduction must also cause in parts of Africa, at present comparatively tranquil. It is my firm belief,' says Mr. Hook, Commissary Judge at Sierra Leone, that, in nine or ten months after the withdrawal of the squadron, the whole of Western Africa, from Cape Verde to Benguela, would present a scene of cruelty and devastation too fearful to contemplate. All the progress of Christianity, civilisation, and commerce 'would be annihilated; in a word, Western Africa would, in 'the course of a year or two, be rolled back to its worst pristine 'savage condition.'

If the removal of the cruisers would thus spread wider, and render more intense, the misery of Africa, it tends no less grievously to enhance the sufferings of the slaves in Cuba and Brazil. We have already shown that it must greatly aggravate their average mortality, by enabling the planters to use them ' up' with a higher profit than at present. And what an amount of human agony is involved in this process! It is well known that even now, when they are so much higher priced than usual, that the temptation to abridge their lives by excessive labour has been found irresistible in Cuba-that during the five months of crop time, they are worked for eighteen or twenty hours in the day -that the whip is in constant exercise-and that after the toil of the day, they are generally put at night into pens, and guarded like wild beasts. How much more rapidly would they be consumed, were their value lessened by two-thirds! I think,' says Capt. Mansell, speaking of the Brazils, that were the 'slave trade unrestricted, the life of a slave in Brazil would be 'scarcely worth a year's purchase.'

Now as regards the Middle Passage itself. While the augmented slave trade would become answerable for these additional cruelties on both the cast and west sides of the Atlantic, there are strong grounds for believing that at least the same amount of suffering as at present would continue to be endured in the Middle Passage.

We may be expected, in the first place, upon this part of the case to answer the inferences drawn from the statistical table contained in Mr. Hutt's Report. We consider that table to a great extent to answer itself. When the yearly average of

casualties during the voyage is worked out to one uniform rate of 14 per cent. between 1788 and 1815, and to a rate equally uniform of 25 per cent. from 1815 to 1847, we simply say that this uniformity is so impossible, as at once to shake the credit of the table. When we discover further that this increased rate of casualties from 14 to 25 per cent., which it is endeavoured to connect with the repressive measures, is made to date from a period two years antecedent to the first employment of the squadron, our mistrust is greatly augmented. When it is compared with the evidence of others, and more especially with the evidence of Sir C. Hotham, and when we inquire from what sources this goodly array of figures has been compiled, our astonishment is great at Mr. Hutt's credulity, and our respect for the authority of his table vanishes altogether. Sir C. Hotham (Q. 2676.) states, that the mortality under the worst measures, (which he considers to be whilst the slaves are under our control,) only amounts to 9 per cent. He shows that, on 14,000 slaves captured, the mortality up to the date of adjudication did not rise so high, and that the mortality in the vessels that escape may be computed at 5 per cent. But the data on which these tables are formed come from no better source than Dr. Cliffe, the American slave dealer, from whom Sir C. Hotham separates himself with a most justifiable disgust I have no concern,' says the gallant officer, with Mr. Cliffe's evidence.' It would perhaps have shown as much wisdom as good feeling if Mr. Hutt had agreed in this respect with Sir C. Hotham; more especially when he found that these returns were rejected even by their worthy author, the slave trader and pirate, who declared the amount of deaths to have been erroneously copied by Mr. Bandinel, or erroneously described by himself. Yet it is on the authority of these tables, that Mr. Hutt obtained his miserable majority of one in the Committee; and it is by these tables that the public have been misled, and that we are called on to believe that our squadron has increased the extent and the suffering of the slave trade. Although we have the admission of Sir C. Hotham himself, that if all restrictions were removed, and the squadron taken entirely away, small speculators would spring up, and undersell those now in the market; the slave trade would be greatly increased in its horrors, and it would be impossible to calculate the calamities that would ensue; pirates would abound, and it would be impossible for a legitimate trader to conduct his operations on the const.' We only wish that it were as easy to repress these crimes of the slavers as to shiver Dr. Cliffe's lot of statistics,' as he himself somewhat cor ously calls them. But for