diately after being landed. To elude the vigilance of our cruizers they are sometimes jammed in, under a false deck, unable to stand upright, and piled together till they become a living mass of putridity; at other times, as we have seen, they are inclosed in casks. On their arrival at the place of destination they are instantly sent into the fields to labour, as the object, especially in the Brazils and Cuba, is to get out of them the largest possible quantity of work in the least possible time.

England, by the abolition, may certainly console herself with the reflection of having done her best to atone for the misery inflicted by her while she continued to carry on the trade: the sacrifice, however, was very great; and though we take an honest pride in the fact, yet we must be permitted to temper our joy, as the benevolent purpose has evidently been defeated. It cannot be concealed that, by this act, we have set the seal to the gradual decay of our West India colonies, and raised the value of those to which we have resigned the horrid traffic. The sturdiest abolitionist will scarcely venture to deny that Jamaica is threatened with the most serious calamities, while Cuba and the Brazils are inundating the markets of Europe with their coffee and sugars; and that while all these advantages are reaping by Spain and Portugal, England has suffered herself to be cajoled by them (perhaps we might be justified in the use of a stronger word, if obtaining money under false pretences deserve one) out of a million sterling, under the name of indemnities. Something more must be done, or we had better abandon the cause altogether. One little sentence from the Powers assembled at Vienna would have given the death-blow to a traffic, which they pronounced disgraceful to Europe; it was only necessary to declare those guilty of piracy who should be detected carrying it on, and liable to the punishment of death, (and nothing short of this, we fear, will do,) and the external part of it at least would have been effectually stopped. It is true we have made it felony, and the Americans piracy;-but while France and Portugal are suffered to pursue the traffic, there is but too much reason to believe that both English and American masters, and English and American capitals, will be employed under the flags of those nations, and even under the Spanish flag from the Havannah, where it is ascertained ships of various nations still continue to fit out for the coast of Africa. The government of America we would willingly believe in earnest, when it declared the slavetrade to be piracy; but, admitting this, it is not very probable that she will be able to destroy slavery on the coast of Africa, while she continues to permit it in two-thirds of her own dominions; or that the southern and western states will cease to

smuggle

smuggle in fresh cargoes of slaves through the Havannah. Her sincerity, however, would be less doubtful if she would consent to the point of mutual search. It is not exacting from her any concession, or requiring her to give up any right, or wave any principle; it is a mere reciprocal agreement, which would facilitate the great object that the two nations profess, and one of them is known, to have in view. The same observation will apply to France; but we are the less surprized at her resistance, because we have seen nothing in her conduct that could lead us to believe that she ever was in earnest on this point. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the right of search is a belligerent right which cannot exist but in time of war, when both France and America may be well assured Great Britain will, as heretofore, exercise it, as authorized by ancient usage and public law. We are glad to see that a Committee of the American legislature view the measure precisely in the way that we do, and state their conviction that nothing short of the concession of a qualified right of visitation and search can practically suppress the slave-trade; but the President affects to consider the measure, as agreed to in the treaties with other powers, to be of a character to which the peculiar situation and institutions of the United States do not permit them to accede:-We cannot help thinking that this is considering it rather too curiously; for, as the Committee justly observe, ‘ the proposal itself in the manner made, is a total abandonment, on the part of England, of any claim to visit and search vessels in a time of peace.'

The Committee however, it is quite evident, are not on the popular side of the question. The sense of the people of America, notwithstanding the vapouring of the apostate Walsh, (the venal calumniator of England, is decidedly in favour of negroslavery. When it was debated in. Congress, whether slavery should be extended to the Missouri territory, the question, after a long debate and a call of the house, was decided in favour of slavery; and thus, says an American writer in the Alexandria Gazette, by the blessing of God, slave-holding is established there by statute,-by the laws of our free and independent national legislature.' We have before us some very sensible remarks of a respectable American, on this blessed' establishment of slavery by law, in the new portion of their dominions. "The Missouri question,' he observes, settles the point beyond the possibility of contradiction, and confirms the irresistible truth, that a majority of the American nation, having debated the question, almost without intermission, for thirty-one days, have most solemnly voted for the extension of slavery; and such was the tenacity with which this determination was adhered to, that many

members

members from the slave-holding states declared the existence of the Union depended upon its decision in their favour: this threat had its operation on the minds of a few northern members, and America was disgraced for ever.'

A singular incident took place on this occasion. During the debate, by accident or design, a slave-driver passed under the walls of the Capitol with fourteen or fifteen negroes, men, women and children; the former handcuffed, to prevent their turning upon their driver. Several representatives witnessed this edifying sight, and, with the exception of three or four, who were consciencestruck, entered the House, like the patriotic beater of the poor Knife-Grinder, and, in a paroxysm of universal philanthropy,' gave their votes for the establishment of negro slavery.

It would not greatly surprize us, if some of our readers should here remind us, that, after what has been said, we ought to suspend at least our favourable opinion of the sincerity of the American government, a hint which will not be thought the less necessary when they peruse the following horrible advertisement, which now lies before us, and which was posted in the streets, and in all the papers of those sacred hundred square miles' which form the district of Columbia, the capital of the enlightened States of America, the throne of freedom, the fountain-head, and clear unpolluted source of law and justice, and the everlasting prop and stay of natural equality.

NOTICE. Was committed to the jail of Washington County, D. C. on the 27th October last, as a runaway, a yellow woman, who calls herself Nancy Rebecca; she is 5 feet 2 inches high, supposed to be about 40 years old, and appears to be in a state of derangement. She does not claim to be free, neither does she state to whom she belongs. Had on when committed, a home-made jacket and petticoat, and a linen shift. The owner of the above woman, if any, is requested to come and prove property, and take her away, otherwise she will be sold for her jail fees, and other expenses, as the law directs.

C. TIPPETT, Keeper,

For T. RINGOLD, Marshall.' We cannot do better than subjoin the remark of our sensible American correspondent, who feels for the shame of his countrymen. 'Volumes (says he) have been written on the cruelties of the Holy Inquisition, and on the treatment of slaves in Algiers: but no other country professing to be governed by the pure principles of the Christian religion does, at this enlightened period, tolerate such savage barbarity as this.A miserable human being, by the visitation of God deprived of her reason, a wretched maniac, against whom no crime is even alleged, is taken up, put into prison, and probably into chains, and sold for prison fees, if a still more miserable wretch can be

found,

found, hard-hearted enough to become the purchaser!' 'How,' he adds, is it possible to reconcile this and a thousand other practices of the same kind with the boasted Declaration—“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that their Creator has endowed them with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"! Well was it remarked by a traveller in that country, that if there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, (and, let us add, truly detestable in ethics,) it is an American patriot signing resolutions of independence with one hand, and brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves with the other.'

But there are other reasons which tend very much to stagger us in our belief of the professed sincerity of the American government to put an end to the slave-trade. It was broadly asserted in Congress, by one of the most respectable of the representatives of one of the Northern States, and not attempted to be contradicted, that though the laws were highly penal against the slave-trade, yet it was a well known fact that fourteen thousand slaves, at the least, had been brought into the country, in the course of the year 1818.' That these could only be introduced by a general connivance is quite certain; and that it is so, we have the authority of the Aurora, a Philadelphia paper in great circulation. In that of November 20, 1819, which now lies before us, it is said, "That so far from any prospect of the slave-system being done away, their introduction into many parts of the United States has been connived at, and even some vessels of the United States have brought in slave-ships, whose cargoes have been clandestinely disposed of; and it appears, by a late Georgia Newspaper, that a public agent of the United States has been concerned in the ignominious traffic. In fact, (continues the writer) the government of the United States was particularly informed, more than two years ago, of the names of the owners of more than fifty vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, from Boston to Savannah, and the names of the vessels, and their captains, who were concerned in carrying on the slave-trade with Havannah. We say, the Executive had this list authentically made to the proper department,' &c.

We deem it right to notice these things, that the world, in general, and the people of this country in particular, may not be duped by fine speeches and lofty pretensions in the cause of humanity, into the belief that we have a real co-adjutor, in our own honest exertions for putting an end to this detestable traffic, in the government of the United States. We do not think, with the Marquis of Lansdown, that the Congress has proved its sincerity by passing an Act which makes the trade to

be

be piracy; while it almost simultaneously produces another which sanctions the very worst species of slavery. If any advance, however trifling, has been made towards the extermination of the African trade, (which yet we scarcely dare to hope,) it has been by our own unassisted efforts, and by them alone.

What then, it will be asked, is to be done? The mixed courts' are evidently favourable to the daring speculator; and their structure and proceedings are so anomalous, and so much at variance with every principle of justice administered in the British courts, that we are decidedly of opinion the character of the nation would suffer nothing by their discontinuance. How must a British officer abhor the idea of his declaration on oath and his evidence being put in competition with the deposition of a monster who had already set all laws at defiance, human and divine-while he himself is shut out of the court, and neither allowed to confront the offender, nor to put special interrogatories to him in his own person or by his representative! The expense of these courts, of which there are four abroad and one in London, is no trifling consideration; and as they appear, from the papers laid before parliament, to be wholly inefficient for the purposes for which they were intended, the sooner they are broken up the better. What indeed could be expected from the kind of people nominated-by the Portugueze, for instance,— as judges and arbitrators-(not gentlemen zealous for the national honour, and their own individual character, but habitual and hardened slave-dealers)—but what actually took place, namely, the most gross and shameful partiality? It is little to reply, that some of them have been degraded on this account. We know they have; but nothing has been gained on the score of justice and humanity, since their seats are filled by the same descriptions of persons.

*

Thus the question_recurs -What is now to be done? It is difficult to answer satisfactorily; but we presume to think, that, after the anathema pronounced by the combined sovereigns of Europe against the trade, it is incumbent upon them to do, what they have full power to do,-namely, to declare it piracy: for

* We are willing to believe, and indeed are morally certain, that the English commissioners are of a very different description, though those of Sierra Leone are certainly not held in the highest estimation by the officers of the British navy; but we are very much disposed to think that Sir George Collier must labour under some mistake in the representation of their conduct made to the Admiralty, and printed in the papers laid before parliament. Both he and his officers, however, will be as much surprized, as we have been, to find Mr. Gregory and Mr. Fitzgerald reporting to Lord Castlereagh, under date 5th January, 1821, the actual reduced state of the trade,' particularly as they state the ground of this conclusion to be the information obtained through his Majesty's crujzers,' which is in direct opposition to all the statements made by these cruizers.

although