Spain had agreed to an earlier period for the abolition, a period which had elapsed nearly a year ago. Even before the periods fixed for the final abolition, we knew that those powers had agreed to a great limitation of the trade. This country, with a most honourable distinction in the cause, had, at the same time that we paid a consideration for ships captured, which had not been strictly liable to capture, advanced large sums both to Spain and Portugal for the limitation of the period that was, 300,000l. to the one, and 500,000l. to the other-for the purpose of inducing them to give effect at the time to measures for the extinction of this evil. What had been done upon this subject, had been done with a view to the general and complete abolition of the slave trade, and entitled him to appeal to the house, to the country, and to the nations themselves who permitted this trade, whether this object should not be carried into effect. It was natural now to inquire, what was the result of all the treaties upon this subject which had been promoted by the noble lord on the other side, to whom he willingly gave the tribute of his applause, for the labour and persevering ability with which he had supported the cause. It was known that a mixed commission had been established on the coast of Africa, in consequence of a treaty to which Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands were parties. The commission had been established for the purpose of trying the validity of captures made of slave ships. This was a humane and salutary arrangement. But it was painful to be

obliged to say, that notwithstanding all the efforts made, and measures agreed to, the slave trade was still carried on to an extent which was scarcely inferior to that of any former period, and under the flags of nations who were bound by positive engagements to abolish it. In many instances the trade was carried on with a degree of barbarity and under circumstances which exhibited the utmost possibility of human cruelty on the one hand, and of human suffering on the other. In this respect the worst fears entertained of the partial abolition of the trade were more than realized. At the very time when the friends of the abolition were indulging expectations that the inhuman trade in slaves was at least diminished in amount, and mitigated in manner, it was extremely painful to find that the condensation of misery and the intensity of suffering were greatly increased. The interests of many other powers were bound up with our own in this great object; yet it was lamentable that we did not meet with an honest feeling of the evils arising from the abhorred traffic, or of co-operation in putting it down. He gave credit to his noble friend (lord Londonderry) for his zeal and industry in removing the flimsy sophistry by which the fair construction of treaties had been evaded, and substantial justice refused. The noble lord (Clancarty) who was our representative in the Netherlands, gave every assistance in this object, by his zeal and ability in the cause. He (Mr. Wilberforce) was happy in this public opportunity of expressing his sense of that noble lord's ser

vices. He hoped that that great commercial country (the Netherlands) would awake to that zeal and earnestness on the subject, which became its character and its history. Of Spain it was not necessary for him to say much. A people of the great, high-minded, gallant character which distinguished the Spanish nation, could not, even in circumstances of a local nature, which at present occupied their whole attention, be tardy in joining with us in putting an end to this trade. The great and eminent men who were advocating the cause of humanity and justice in that country could not be appealed to on a cause so good as the abolition of the African slave trade without success. Of the narrow and bigotted policy of Portugal, he was obliged to speak otherwise. It might be remembered, that during the congress of Vienna, when Portugal had not yielded to the evident desire and strong remonstrances of his noble friend, and when his noble friend had been unable to prevail upon Portugal to fix a period to this trade, it had been agreed that, supposing Portugal alone should continue the slave trade, supposing Portugal alone should resist the will and consent of all Europe, supposing she alone should endeavour to frustrate the benevolent purpose of all the other powers, or at least persist in refusing to let that benevolent purpose be universally successful,if she alone thus counteracted what all desired, it had been agreed that something stronger than treaties or remonstrances should be resorted to; and that all the other powers should abstain from using the colonial pro

duce of that country. When this proposition had been adopted at once, by the powers who were umpires on this question, who viewed it rather as assessors than parties; when they had at once seen and admitted the reasonableness of such a measure, he trusted it was not necessary for him to contend now for its propriety. Indeed it was absolutely necessary to resort to this alternative. He thought it became the house and the country to endeavour to bring Portugal to a clear understanding on this point. After every effort that had been made had proved ineffectual, it was necessary to convince Portugal that she would be suffered no longer to obstruct every other christian power, and almost every christian individual, in their exertions to abolish this traffic. It was gratifying to his heart to be able to state, that the conduct of America had been very different. Although, from the mixed character of that country, from the several states which formed the union, and the several interests which influenced them—some carrying on an internal slave trade; although, from such causes, it was a matter of some difficulty to get the general legislature of the country to give their determination respecting the trade, yet they had, in the most unequivocal manner abolished this traffic, and fixed upon it a brand of infamy, by treating it as a felony under the suitable denomination of piracy. The Americans had been disposed earlier than ourselves to adopt a milder system of punishment for crimes, and had very rarely affixed the last punishment, that of death;

for

for crimes of any kind; yet Ame rica, most honourably to herself, declared, that every American subject engaged in this trade should suffer capital punishment, the same punishment that should be due to the practice and profession of piracy. It was with peculiar gratification that he mentioned this fact, because his heart was gladdened by seeing such sympathy and union between America and ourselves, who were children of the same parents, and who might have slight or occasional differences, but would cordially agree in matters of real and permanent interest, and would be the more cordial after a temporary disagreement. How painful it was to speak in very different terms of another nation, great, gallant, and high spirited? France had perhaps disappointed our expectations, and was carrying on the traffic in slaves to a greater extent than any other country., This result, indeed, had disappointed his expectations and blasted his hopes. He could not help persuading himself, that there had been many circumstances in the situation of France which would have forcibly contributed to her abolition of the slave trade. At the time that the French had been beginning to enjoy the blessings of a free constitution, and to feel the spirit of liberty and national dignity, he had hoped that they would have respected the rights and the happiness of all mankind. If those who were friendly to an opposite system, were the ruling party in that country, it might have been conceived that they would be unwilling to abolish the trade in slaves, and that so long as the

trade promoted their objects it would be in vain to expect national convenience to give way to the work of mercy. But when the king of France had, under his own hand, joined with our monarch, then prince regent, who greatly to his honour, and it would be found so in history, had written a letter to the king of France on the subject;-when the king of France had with his own hand expressed his willingness to join in the work of humanity, it should have been expected that the legislature and the nation would have been desirous at least of showing their disposition to co-operate. He did not think that at a time when

this infamous and inhuman traffic had been deserted and given up by England, who had been considered as having betrayed symptoms of a mean and vulgar character, in the extent to which she had carried her commercial transactions, and who had even been styled "une nation boutiquiere" in consequence of them; he did not think, he said, that the high minded and gallant Frenchman would have stooped so low as to engage in it, especially when the other nations of the world had declared their determination to abandon it, from a conviction that they could not be concerned in it without drawing upon themselves the most hideous defilement. He was convinced that if the inhabitants of France were but acquainted with half the miseries which this traffic entailed upon the natives of Africa, they would not cling to it with that earnestness which they now exhibited, nor would they continue to carry it on to that melancholy

extent to which it was proved by the documents on the table that they now carried it. Much as he detested the horrors and atrocities of the revolution which had taken place in that country, still he would say, that when they came to be weighed in the scales of justice and humanity, they would appear as trifles when compared with the enormous magnitude of the evils of the slave trade. Great as were the outrages which the monsters of that unhappy period committed upon all that was respectable for rank, virtue, and talent, still, when judged at the bar of eternal justice, those outrages would shrink into insignificance if they were contrasted with the gigantic dimensions of the evil which the existence of the slave trade had inflicted upon Africa. He wished from the bottom of his heart, that the enormities which they occasioned by supporting the slave trade, could be made fully apparent to those persons of high rank, who were in the habit of defending it. They would then see that they were contracting much more of moral guilt by their conduct, than had ever been contracted by any of the actors in the French revolution. The atrocities which marked the progress of that mighty work of infidelity and frenzy, were committed whilst the nation was in a paroxysm of fever and fermentation; and whilst every individual, who strutted his brief hour as the leader of the day, was acting under the influence of fear, the most cruel of all the passions. The injuries which the slave trade had inflicted, and was still inflicting upon humanity, was sanctioned by the

calm and deliberate opinions of statesmen, who, in the silence and solitude of their closets, were left to decide upon the happiness and misery of thousands.

The honourable member then proceeded to observe that a fact had come to his knowledge, so illustrative of those evils, that he could not refrain from communicating it to the house; and he was the more anxious to communicate this fact, as it related to Le Rodeur, one of the vessels which had been mentioned by his noble friend opposite, to the court of France, as having been engaged in carrying on the slave trade. To the remonstrance which his noble friend had then presented, the French government had replied, with what he could not help calling diplomatic insincerity, that they had examined into the case, that they were convinced that the vessel had not been engaged in the slave trade, and that they had therefore acquitted it. That the Rodeur had been engaged in the slave trade, had been discovered in one of those extraordinary ways which seemed to arise from the special interference of providence, aud which almost flashed conviction upon the mind that the curse of heaven followed upon all who embarked in this execrable commerce. There was a surgeon on board the vessel, who was connected with one of the institutions for curing the ophthalmia in Paris. This gentleman, in communicating to the director-general of the royal insti tution for the blind certain medical cases which occurred during the voyage, mentioned, as it were incidentally, that the Rodeur went to Bouni, in Africa, for the

purpose

purpose of procuring slaves: after stating, that upon obtaining 160 negroes, they stood out to sea, he added, that they had not been at sea many days before they found that the eyes of most of those negroes were strangely affected. This the surgeon had attributed to their being kept up closely in the hold. "Kept up closely in the hold" were words that ran easily off the tongue, and might not excite any feeling either of horror or compassion among his hearers. He begged them, however, to consider what misery this "being kept up closely in the hold" must have inflicted upon these unhappy wretches, of whom not one, in all probability, had ever before been a single league at sea. The surgeon recommended that they should be brought upon deck in succession, in order that they might breathe a purer air. The consequence of this expedient had not, however, been anticipated; indeed it was such as must convince even the most incredulous, of the miseries of the slave trade. It appeared from the report of the surgeon, that the slaves, when they were permitted to come upon deck, locked themselves in each other's arms, and then, to put an end to their miseries, leaped over-board into the ocean. It was curious, by the bye, to observe how technically the individual who had seen it recited this transaction. The feeling which had driven these poor wretches to such an act of desperation, and which was as strong a symptom of a broken heart as could well be imagined, was called by him nostalgia, a term which our translators could not comprehend, but which meant

a passionate desire to revisit their native land. This nostalgia rendered it, however, necessary to keep the slaves in the hold, and the consequence of that was, that the captain, the sailors, and the surgeon, were infected by their disorder. Indeed, with the exception of the man at the helm, there was not a single sailor in the ship, whose eyes were untainted with the general malady. Though the fact was not mentioned in the publication, it was known from another source, that but for this one man, who was not afflicted with the ophthalmia, the ship could never have been brought to harbour, but must have been left to drift about at the mercy of the winds and the waves. Whilst they were in this situation, the crew became apprehensive of a revolt among the negroes; other violent measures were in consequence adopted towards them; some of them were shot under circumstances of great cruelty, and others hung for the purpose of preventing the remainder from throwing themselves overboard, it being a superstition among the negroes, that if they are put to death in such a manner as denies to their bodies the chance of being carried to the place of their nativity, they are prevented from joining their friends in another state of existence. As if to give an instance of the punishments which providence, even in this world, sometimes assigns to the malignity of human nature, he must state, that in the course of their voyage, the crew of the Rodeur fell in with a Spanish ship, the Leon, of which the whole crew had become blind, and were reduced to the necessity of altogether