Spanish. The mate asserted that the log-book and papers had been taken from them by a privateer off the Cape de Verd islands; but one of the crew assured the officer that they had never been boarded by any vessel of any description since they left the Havannah. It turned out that the master and cargo had been landed nine days before at theGallinas for the purpose of purchasing slaves. This affords a striking instance of the embarrassing situation in which the officers of the navy are placed: for as a vessel, like the one in question, without papers or proof of nationality, had been liberated by the 'mixed court' of Sierra Leone, Captain Leeke declined taking her thither; preferring to carry her down to the southward, and, after taking the depositions of the crew, to leave her (and them) to go back to the Havannah, or to renew her infamous traffic at the Gallinas, where, no doubt, a living cargo was waiting her arrival. We have since learned that she pursued the latter course, took on board 290 slaves, and upset in a gale of wind: the whole of the Negroes, being in irons, perished, as did part of the crew; but the infamous master escaped. All these captures were made to the northward of the line, where, according to treaty, the trade should have been abolished four years ago; and it is well known that vessels continue to fit out at the Havannah under various flags for the slave-trade with the connivance of the government. So much for Mr. Wilberforce's high-minded Spaniards' of the revolution! But the PORTUGUEZE are the most unblushing dealers in human flesh, and openly and under the Royal authority carry on the trade with the greatest activity. At Bissaos the flag of Portugal 'protects miscreants of every nation.' In the Rio Pongas, in the Gallinas, and more especially in the bights of Benin and Biafra, whole fleets of Portugueze vessels are constantly met with, all bearing royal licences for Cabenda, five degrees to the southward of the line, but, by a strange fatality, always fallen in with as many degrees or more to the northward of the line. These vessels are sure of meeting with the protection of Ferrara Gomez, the governor of Prince's island. The Portugueze were shamed into a pretence of removing this man about two years ago; but he still continues his nefarious traffic. To watch the proceedings of the vessels belonging to, or under the protection of, this notorious slave-monger, an establishment on Fernando Po, with a few armed launches and small vessels, would be of the utmost use. One of this fellow's vessels, named the Vulcano, full of slaves, was detained by Captain Kelly, of the Pheasant, and dispatched under the charge of Mr. Cassel, a midshipman, and some of the Pheasant's crew, to Sierra Leone, where, however, she never arrived. Sir George Collier is persuaded that she has been captured by some slaving vessel, and that Mr. Cassel and his people

will never be heard of more: ' my opinion (he observes) of these gentry being (and that founded upon strong authority) that they are capable of committing any crime or outrage.'

Whydah is the residence of a felon banished from the Brazils, who is active in procuring slaves for his countrymen. In March last the Thistle boarded a schooner bound for this place, from which, the preceding year, she had carried a full cargo of slaves; she had then, as she now had, a royal licence to ship slaves at Cabenda. In the same month, the boats of the Tartar seized the Donna Eugenia in the river Bonny, from Fernambuco, having on board eighty-five slaves, part of her intended cargo: this ship too had a royal licence on board for Cabenda. In April, the boats of the Tartar, with the Thistle schooner, proceeded up Old Calabar river, where they detained two Portugueze schooners. One was the Constantia of seventy-three tons, having on board the enormous number of 250 slaves. She also was destined for that royal slave mart, Cabenda, where the master was ready to swear he shipped every Negro; but that having missed Prince's Island to which he belonged, (a partner of Gomez, no doubt,) he had put into Old Calabar for supplies :—and he had actually fabricated a log to this effect! It was, however, distinctly proved that the slaves had only been embarked twentyfour hours; yet, short as the time was,—death had already commenced his career, the body of a female being found buried, as it were, amongst a mass of living slaves. The stench was dreadful and the heat suffocating; as will easily be believed when we state `that Fahrenheit's thermometer, which stood at 83° on deck, was raised in this sepulchral dungeon to 115°! The other schooner was the Gaviaō, from Fernambuco, and she too had a royal pass for 357 slaves, of whom eight were shipped: the captain, however, asserted that he came here solely for palm oil.

In the same month the Morgiana captured, in lat. 3° N. of the line, bound for St. Salvador, the Emelia, of 140 tons, having on board 396 slaves. The master had the audacity to swear that they were all shipped at Cabenda, nearly two months before, though he had only expended four casks of water, and the iron marks, with which the slaves were branded (like Scotch ponies, to distinguish to whom they belong) were evidently fresh burnt, and the Negroes themselves clearly and positively stated, that they had all been shipped at Lagos, six and a half degrees to the northward of the line. The heat and stench on board were so intolerable, that Captain Finlayson was induced to take a large portion of these poor creatures into his own ship. Baffling winds and calms making it impossible for him to reach Sierra Leone, he stood for the island of St. Thomas, where, however, little or no provisions

were to be procured; he then made for the island of Ascension, which, owing to the strength of the current and the bad sailing of the slave-ship, he, unfortunately, missed. Thus circumstanced, with scarcely any supplies, and nearly 600 people under his charge, he stood across for Bahia, where he arrived with only one day's provision on board: yet such was the care and humane treatment which the Negroes experienced from this officer, that two only died on the protracted passage.

The next European power which claims our notice is FRANCE, whose inhabitants, according to Sir James Mackintosh, are also a 'high-minded people'-in allusion, we presume, to a small party who, from whatever motives, have raised their voice against the government, and, in this case, will, we trust, never cease to do so, until it shall have taken effectual measures for putting a stop to that detestable traffic which their sovereign voluntarily declared to be contrary to justice, morality, and the Christian religion." -Clamorous, however, as they are, such is their rooted aversion to every thing English, that they eagerly oppose the only effectual means of checking the trade (short of declaring it piracy)—a reciprocal right of search, because the proposal originates with this country. Mean time, the French slave-trade proceeds with increased vigour and accumulated atrocity from year to year and from day to day! We extract the following passage from Sir George Collier, who, having learned that the master of a French schooner had plundered another slave-dealer of fourteen slaves, sent an officer to examine her.'

'On the return of Lieutenant Finlayson, who had boarded the Jeune Estelle, I was much shocked to learn, that after the positive declaration of Mons. Sanguines that he had no slaves on board, while'. examining the platform and hold, his curiosity was excited by a cask carefully closed at the bung-hole, by canvass nailed over it; on knocking the hoops off, two female children were discovered almost suffocated, who had been headed up in the cask, and stowed in the hold to avoid discovery. These children were ordered on board the Tartar to be questioned, when the American mate of the Swift declared solemnly they were two of the fourteen slaves seized by force from him at Trade Town by Mons. Sanguines in person, being a part of those left him by the, will of Captain Richards; and this was not only assented to in part by Mons. Sanguines, but corroborated by the children themselves. Under these circumstances I should have felt myself justified in sending the Jeune Estelle to Goree or Senegal; but her actual state and condition appeared so bad as not to warrant the risk of the passage during the tornados, which have already commenced. I therefore decided upon retaining the two slave children, and indorsed his papers with a notification to that effect. In the belief that some other slaves might be on board, I desired that all the casks in the hold might be examined, and

sent

sent Mons. Sanguines to his schooner, to attend, that no injury to the vessel or cargo might occur. While this examination was taking place, Mons. Sanguines confessed he had one slave still on board, secreted between the casks; and in fact the plank on which they were standing being removed, a male slave was found lying between the casks, and supporting on his back the plank forming the deck. The situation of this unfortunate being was deplorable; but as he did not appear to be one of those taken by violence from Trade Town, I felt rather glad at an excuse for leaving him, in the hope that in case of a future chase, it might prevent Mons. Sanguines taking more effectual means of ridding himself of such evidence of his violation of all laws human and divine. -Papers, &c. p. 28, 29.

The case of the Rodeur, mentioned by Lord Lansdown, proves the general want of feeling in France on the subject. A dreadful ophthalmia prevailed among the slaves on board this ship, which was communicated to the crew, so that there was but a single man who could see to guide the vessel into port.' 'There is but too much reason,' said his lordship, to believe that many of the slaves, after becoming totally blind, were thrown overboard, as unproductive articles of merchandize; some were however conveyed to the hospitals, and so singular and severe were the symptoms of the disease, that it became the subject of scientific inquiry at the ophthalmic institution in Paris.' Yet notorious as the case thus became, the French government unluckily could not ascertain the fact of the Rodeur having had any slaves on board! and the only answer our ambassador obtained was the affidavit of the blameless and calumniated master, who swore that he knew nothing of the slave-trade; and that the Spanish and other vessels concerned in it called themselves French, for the purpose of casting an odium upon the innocent nation.

On the eastern coast of Africa, the French are equally active. In March last the Menai captured, off the Seychelles, le Succès, French brig, having on board 340 slaves from the island of Zanzibar, ostensibly for Bourbon, but supposed to be actually for one of the small islands, a dependency of Mauritius, where it was intended to establish a depot, whence they might with greater convenience be smuggled into the Mauritius, where they bear about three times the price which they fetch in Bourbon. This brig was commanded by a person of the name of Bertrand, an officer in the French navy, who, with three lieutenants, two surgeons, and a supracargo, had shares in the trade. She was stated to be one of twenty-four vessels of the same kind fitted out last year, at Nantes, with the view of filling up the vacancy occasioned by the supposed abandonment of the traffic on this coast by the Spaniards and Portugueze. One of her consorts, l'Industrie, was chased, but escaped in the night, with a cargo of 400 blacks; and it appeared that another, the Albatross, had left the

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island

island a few days before with about 500 on board. Thus, in less than a month, nearly 1,300 blacks were carried off one small island by three French vessels alone; and the crew of one of them, the Succès, stated that 20,000 still remained on it. The last Spanish ship that left it took on board 800 slaves, of which 600 perished on her voyage to the Havannah !

The island of Zanzibar lies in lat. 6° S. and belongs to the Imaum of Muscat. What this petty chief, living under the northern tropic, on the shore of the Persian gulf, can have to do with Zanzibar, is not easy to conceive. Its sheik, we believe, pays him a trifling annual tribute; and this is all the connection he appears to have with it. As the friendship of the English East India Company, however, is highly important to his interests, commercial and territorial, he would doubtless transfer to them the sovereignty of the island on easy terms: it is extremely fertile, and has a safe and commodious harbour; but our chief, indeed our only cause for wishing to see it in their hands arises from a conviction that it would essentially serve the cause of humanity. That the French, who are strengthening their marine force in the eastern seas, will avail themselves of any opening to obtain a footing on that part of the coast of Africa, where slaves are abundant, there can be no doubt; and when the officers of their royal navy contend for the dishonour of conducting the trade, little hope remains of its abolition, except by compulsion.

What will be the result of the present capture, (the Succès,) we know not; but it must at least have the good effect of exposing to the world the countenance given by the French government to this execrable traffic, by permitting their own officers to carry it on; and this very fact may partly explain its obstinacy with regard to the refusal of a reciprocal right of search. As long as we are prohibited from interfering with ships bearing the white flag, thousands of slaves will continue to be, as they now are, clandestinely shipped and carried off without molestation, and without the possibility of ascertaining their numbers. Sir George Collier states, that, from various sources of information, he has no hesitation in estimating the amount of slaves carried off from the windward coast alone, under the flag of France, within the last twelve months, at ten thousand'! In fact, vessels, mostly American-built, and under French colours, may be met with in every creek and harbour, along the whole coast of Africa, taking on board cargoes of slaves for Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Cuba, the last of which places is the general entrepôt for most of the slaves imported into the southern and western states of America, and the first is well known to afford an annual supply for the Dutch colony of Surinam.

The government of AMERICA, it is true, has by statute-laws abolished