of their deliberations on this paramount question cannot be viewed without feelings of deep humiliation and regret. The discussions were opened by Lord Castlereagh, who explained the existing state of the trade, and announced his intention of submitting, on a future day, two propositions, the first containing an appeal to the King of Portugal, urging him to give effect to the declaration of the Congress at Vienna in 1815, by consenting, as Spain had done, to the final abolition on the 30th of May 1820, and the second allowing a right of mutual visit, as already adopted by Great Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands. The latter of these propositions was heard with extreme jealousy by the Duc de Richelieu, the French Minister; while the former was unanimously adopted; with this modification, however, that the period of abolition should in no case extend beyond 1823. In reference to the second point, Lord Castlereagh communicated to the Congress the memorandum which he had furnished to the Duc de Richelieu at his own request; adding, that in the opinion of several persons of great weight and authority, nothing less than declaring the slave trade Piracy, and punishable as such by international law, by the unanimous accession of the maritime powers, would ever prove in any degree effectual in repressing the " Scourge that had desolated Africa, degraded Europe, and afflicted humanity."

In consequence of these proceedings, notes were received from the Plenipotentiaries of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France. That of Rus. sia, in particular, while it professes to pronounce as a fundamental prin. ciple, a law characterising this odious traffic as a description of piracy, and punishable as such, proposes to

found an institution, on a central point of the coast of Africa, in the formation of which all Christian states should take part, and which," declared for ever neutral and estranged from all political and local interests," should be specially charged with the execution of the law. The memoir of the French Government also professes much, and ends by proposing to do nothing; and with regard to the right of mutual search recognised between great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, it declares, that the "dangers which peculiar. ly attach to their situation, prevent them from acceding to that measure," the only conceivable one, be it remarked, by which this most nefarious traffic can ever be effectually checked or destroyed. With respect to the Austrian and Prussian Cabinets, we cannot conceive what possible right or title they had to interfere, or to be consulted, in this great and important concernment. Without colonies, without naval force, without the possibility of their own subjects being in any degree benefited by the slave trade, or their interests impaired by its abolition, it may fairly be considered as one of the least explicable enigmas of diplomacy, that these powers were suffered, in any degree, to interrupt the proceedings on a measure which the increasing lights of the age will sooner or later rendered imperative on every government, and which they laboured to obstruct in its progress towards completion, solely from a jealousy of British naval ascendancy. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to be grave when perusing the lecture of the Prussian Plenipotentiaries against "the inseparable inconveniences of the concession of a right of search exercised on the high seas." on the high seas." A power not possessed of a ship of war above the

dimensions of a thirty-gun frigate, and few indeed even of this size, might have been supposed less jealous of the exercise of such a right, especially when Britain, the greatest naval power on earth, had consented to allow the exercise in the case of her own vessels, by the cruisers of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. With regard to the clumsy machinery of a general association, founded, as was stated, on the primitive principles of Christianity, and gravely proposed by the Russian CabiDet, it appears to be a measure or device better fitted for a place in one of Kotzebue's German novels, than to form part of the recorded proceedings of a congress of the greatest Sovereigns in the world. Even if an institution, to be composed of such incongruous and jarring materials, could have been fairly established and set in operation, it is obvious, even if there were no other objection, that it would fall to pieces the instant war broke out a mong any of the high contracting powers; while it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive how such an institution could have ever been made conducive to the attainment of an object which reason, religion, humanity, and enlightened policy alike unite to recommend.

That this was the view taken by the British diplomatists, is manifest from the slightest inspection of their able and masterly reply to the notes given in by the Plenipotentiaries of the other powers. After expressing, in strong terms, their disappointment that the disinterested and humane purposes of the British Government had been frustrated by the course adopted by the other cabinets, notwithstanding the solemn declaration and pledge unanimously given at Vienna in 1815, and stating that they derive consolation from the homage

to the principle of abolition, rendered by the respective Plenipotentiaries in their notes in reply to Lord Castlereagh's communication, they remark, that it has been the fate of this question, in every stage of its progress, to have difficulties represent ed as insurmountable, which in a little tim have yielded to perseverance, and to the matured impulses of hu manity;" that "every nation, one excepted, has renounced this pollu tion" and that even the King of Portugal had taken steps "to deliver his people, in no very long time, from a practice which must degrade them in the scale of enlightened policy, so long as it shall continue to be tolerated amongst them." gard to the proposal of Russia, they doubt "the practicability of so novel and complicated a system," and declare, that nothing but raising slave. dealing to the standard of piracy in the criminal codes of all civilized nations, and branding slave-traders as "hostes humani generis," could prove effectual in extirpating a traf fic, which cries to Heaven for vengeance against all those who openly patronise, or secretly tolerate it. They state that the simplest measures are sure to prove the most ef fectual, and ask why Russia, Austria, and Prussia should postpone to an indefinite period the final abolition, seeing even Portugal had conceded the right of visit north of the equator, "where the abolition has now been completed, as well by herself, as by Spain and all the other powers?" With regard to the qualified right of mutual search," as if there were some moral incompetency in the French nation to conform themselves to the measure," they state the unanswerable argument, that "the British people, so sensitively alive as they are known to be to every cir cumstance that might impede their

commercial pursuits, or expose the national flag to an unusual interference, have betrayed no apprehension on the subject, and that not a single remonstrance has been heard against it!" And in conclusion they approve of the intended introduction into the French colonies of a registry of slaves, and declare their unalterable conviction, "that until all the principal powers consent to have as against the illicit slave-trader, AT LEAST ON THE COAST OF AFRICA, but one common flag, and co-operating force, they will not have gone to the full extent of their means to effectuate their purpose, in conformity to their declarations at Vienna!" Thus ended the conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle respecting the more effectual abolition of the slave trade; and thus have the hopes of the friends of humanity been cruelly disappointed by a conclave of Sovereigns and Ministers, who, with every human means to consummate this glorious moral triumph, have failed to consecrate the pacification of Europe by an act for which the wise and good of all after-times would have cherished their names in everlasting remem. brance.

A variety of communications have been received by the directors of this institution, representing the vast increase of the slave trade, and the evils arising from delay in issuing instructions to the vessels of war upon the different stations, in terms of the commissions under the conventions with Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands. By a letter from Africa so late as December last, it appears that Sir George Collier, the naval commander on the coast, had then received no instructions as to the measures to be adopted in pursuance of these conventions. Motions were accordingly made, and agreed to without opposition, in both Houses of Parliament, for copies of all appointments

VOL. XII. PART II.

of commissioners to carry into effect the conventions with the above powers, dated respectively the 28th of July, 23d of September 1817, and the 4th of May 1818; and copies of all instructions, with their respective dates, to his Majesty's ships sent to the coast of Africa, since these conventions were concluded.

Notwithstanding the treaty entered into between Governor Farquhar and the King of Ovas, it appears by recent letters from the Isle of France, that the slave trade is still carried on with the island of Madagascar. Many hundred slaves have been imported since the signature of the treaty; and after all that has been done by the governor, there is reason to fear, that, amongst the Europeans settled in that quarter of the world, there exists no sincere or hearty disposition to discourage such importations. On the contrary, a determined hostility is invariably shown to every measure, the object of which is to prevent this enormous evil. Of three of these traffickers in human beings a salutary example has recently been made. Four individuals were brought from the Mauritius, charged with the crime of trading in slaves; but the Grand Jury found a true bill only against three, Phillippe Caday alias Philibert, Joseph Amand Tregrosse, and Louis Amand Clerausac, who were accordingly tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and to be kept to hard labour. This is the most lenient sentence allowed by Mr Brougham's act.

In the neighbourhood of the French settlements of Senegal and Goree, the trade has been carried on with peculiar and increasing activity; and many persons both in France and Senegal have been proved to be concerned in this nefarious commerce. A gentleman recently arrived in this

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