guise of the nation whose cruizer there is the least chance of his meeting on the coast. Thus the Portuguese slave trader, since the abolition north of the line took effect, has been found to conceal himself under the Spanish flag. The American, and even the British dealer, has in like manner assumed a foreign disguise. Many instances have occurred of British subjects evading the laws of their country, either by establishing houses at the Havannah, or obtaining false papers. If such has been the case in time of war, when neutral flags were legally subjeeted to the visit of the belligerant cruizers the evil must tenfold increase when peace has extinguished this right, and when even British ships, by fraudulently assuming a foreign flag, may, with every prospect of impunity, carry on the traffic.

The obvious necessity of comibning the repression of the illicit slave trade with the measure of abolition, in order to render the latter in any degree effectual, has been admitted both by the Spanish and Portuguese governments; and, in furtherance of this principle, the late conventions have been negotiated; but, whilst the system therein established is confined to the three powers, and whilst the flags of other maritime states, and more especially those of France, Holland, and the United States, are not included therein, the effect must be to vary the ostensible character of the fraud, rather than, in any material degree, to suppress the mischief.

The great powers of Europe, assembled in congress at Vienna, having taken a' solemn engagement, in the face of mankind, that this traffic should be made to cease; and it clearly appearing that the law of abolition is nothing in itself, unless the contraband slave trade shall be suppressed by a combined system, it is submitted, that they owe it to themselves to unite their endeavours, without delay, for that purpose, and, as the best means, it is proposed that the five powers now assembled in conference under the third additional article of the treaty of Paris, should conclude a treaty with each other, upon such enlarged, and at the same time simple principles, as might become a conventional regulation, to which all other maritime states should be invited to give their accession. This convention might embrace the following general provisions:

1st. An engagement, by effectual enactments, to render not only the import of slaves into their respective dominions illegal, but to constitute the trafficking in slaves, on the part of any of their subjects, a criminal act, to be punished in such suitable manner as their respective codes of law may ordain.

2d. That the right of visit be mutually conceded to their respective ships of war, furnished with the proper instructions, ad hoc; that the visit be made under the inspection of a commissioned officer, and no vessel be detained unless slaves shall be found actually on board.

3d. The minor regulations to be such as are established in the conventions with Spain and Portugal, under such further modifications as may appear calculated to obviate abuse and to render the system. if possible, more unobjectionable as a general law, amongst the high contracting parties, applicable to this particular evil.

After the abolition shall have become general, in a course of years, the laws of each particular state may perhaps be made in a great measure effectual to exclude import. The measure to be taken on the coast of Africa, will then become comparatively unimportant; but so long as the partial nature of the abolition, and the facility to contraband import throughout the extensive possessions to which slaves are carried from the coast of Africa, shall afford to the illicit slave trader irresistible temptation to pursue this abominable but lucrative traffic, so long nothing but the vigilant superintendence of an armed and international police on the coast of Africa, can be expected successfully to cope with such practices.

To render such a police either legal or effectual to its object, it must be established under the sanction and by the authority of all civilized states, concurring in the humane policy of abolition: the force necessary to repress the same may be supplied as circumstances of convenience may suggest, by the powers having possessions on the coast of Africa, or local interests, which may induce them to station ships of war in that quarter of the globe; but the endeavors of these powers must be ineffectual, unless backed by a general alliance, framed for this especial purpose. The rights of all nations must be brought to co operate to the end in view, by at least ceasing to be the cover, under which the object, which all aim at accomplishing, is to be defeated.

At the outset some difficulty may occur in the execution of a common system, and especially, whilst the trade remains legal, within certain limits, to the subjects both of the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but if the principal powers frequenting the coast of Africa, evince a dermination to combine their means against the illicit slave trader as a common enemy, and if they are supported in doing so, by other states denying to such illicit slave traders the cover of their flag, the traffic will soon be rendered too hazardous for profitable speculation. The evil must thus cease, and the efforts of Africa be directed to those habits of peaceful commerce and industry, in which all nations will find their best reward for the exertions they shall have devoted to the suppression of this great moral evil.

Lord Castlereagh, upon these grounds, invited his colleagues, in the name of the prince regent, should the powers under which they at present act not enable them to proceed to negotiate a convention upon the grounds above stated, to solicit, without delay, from their respective sovereigns, the authority necessary to this effect. His royal highness confidently trusting that the enlarged and enlightened principles which guided the councils of these illustrious persons at Vienna, and which have now happily advanced the cause of abolition so nearly to its completion, will determine them perseveringly to conduct the measure to that successful close, which nothing but their combined wisdom and continued exertions can effectuate.

Lord Castlereagh concluded by calling the attention of his colleagues to the indisputable proofs afforded both by the present state of the colony at Sierra Leone, and by the increase of African commerce in latter years, of the faculties of that continent, both in its soil and population, for becoming civilized and industrious, the only impediment to which undoubtedly was the pernicious practice of slave trading, which, wherever it prevailed, at once turned aside the attention of the natives from the more slow and laborious means of barter, which industry presented, to that of seizing upon and selling each other.

It was therefore, through the total extinction of this traffic, that Africa could alone be expected to make its natural advances in civilization, a result which it was the declared object of these conferences, by all possible means, to accelerate and to promote.

Note. The proposition made by Viscount Castlereagh, in the preceding memorandum, was immediately transmitted by the several plenipotentiaries for the consideration of their courts, but no answer was received from the respective governments previous to the meeting of the conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle, in September, 1818.

SECOND ENCLOSURE IN No. 2.

Annex B to the Protocol of the conference of the 4th of February, 1818. Queries proposed by Viscount Castlereagh to, and answers of, the African Society in London, December, 1816.

Query 1. What number of slaves are supposed at present to be annually carried from the western coast of Africa across the Atlantic? Answer 1. It would be impossible to give any other than a conjectural answer to this question. It has been calculated, but certainly on loose and uncertain data, that the number of slaves at present carried from the western coast of Africa across the Atlantic, amounts to upwards of 60,000.

Query 2. State as far as you can the comparative numbers annually withdrawn for the last 25 years, either by giving the probable number withdrawn, in each year, or upon an average of years?

Answer 2. The number of slaves withdrawn from western Africa during the last 25 years is also necessarily involved in considerable uncertainty. It has probably amounted to upwards of a million and a half. During many of the early years of that period, the number annually withdrawn is stated, on credible authority, to have amounted to near 80,000.

This agrees with the result of the evidence taken before the Privy Council, in 1787 and 1788. Even this enormous amount, however, is more likely to fall below the real export than to exceed it; for, in the specification contained in the Privy Council Report, the Portu

guese are supposed to have carried off only 15,000 annually, whereas there is reason to believe that their export was much more considerable. The number carried off by ships of the United States is, also, it is apprehended, rated too low.

The abolition of the British slave trade, in 1808, must, of course, have materially lessened the extent of the slave trade.

The diminution of the price of slaves on the coast, however, which followed that measure, appears, in no long time, to have had the effect of tempting other nations to enlarge their purchases, and to crowd their ships; and British capital also gradually found its way into this branch of trade through the medium of foreign houses. On the whole, it is supposed that the average export of the last eight years may have somewhat exceeded the rate of 50,000 annually.

Query 3. From what parts of the coast have these supplies been drawn? State, as far as may be, the approximated distribution of these numbers with respect to different parts of the coast of Africa.

Answer 3. Previously to the year 1810, these supplies were drawn from all parts of the African coast without distinction.

About a fourth part of the whole, it is supposed, was drawn from that part of the coast extending from the river Senegal to the eastern extremity of the Gold Coast. Of the remaining three fourths, one half is supposed to have been drawn from Whydaw, the Bight of Benin, the rivers Bonny, Calabar, Gaboon, and the intermediate districts north of the equator, and the other half from Congo, Angola, Benguela, and other parts of the south of the equator.

Subsequently to the year 1793, the slave trade between the Senegal and the eastern extremity of the Gold Coast was divided almost exclusively between the English and the Americans, probably more than three fourths of it being engrossed by the former. The contemporaneous abolition of the slave trade, therefore, by these two nations, tended greatly to diminish the export of slaves from that line of coast. The Portuguese had previously confined their slave trade almost entirely to the Bight of Benin, and the coast to the southward of it, but, in consequence of the reduction in the price of slaves on the Windward and Gold Coasts, which followed the abolition of the British and American slave trade, they were gradually drawn thither. Before, however, their expeditions to this part of the coast had become very frequent, they were checked by the promulgation of the treaty of amity between Great Britain and Portugal, of February 1810, confining the Portuguese slave trade to places under the dominion of the crown of Portugal. The Windward, and also the Gold Coast, were thus preserved for some years from suffering so severely by the ravages of the slave trade as would otherwise probably be the case. Considerable cargoes, it is true, were occasionally carried away from these districts during the years in question, especially when it could be ascertained that there were no British cruizers in the way to obstruct their progress.

But still, from the year 1808 to the year 1815, the slaves carried from Western Africa were principally taken from Whydaw, the Bight of Benin, and the coast southward of it, and the coast north of that line was comparatively exempt from the ravages of this traffic. Query 4. By what nations, and in what proportions is it understood that the gross annual supply has been purchased and carried away?

Answer 4. Previous to the Revolutionary war the number carried away in British ships was estimated at 38,000 annually. About 40,000, or 42,000 more were supposed to be carried away by the Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danes, and Americans.

This estimate, however, probably falls below the truth, as there is reason to believe that the annual export of the Portuguese alone usually amounted to 25,000, and the number of slaves introduced into St. Domingo by the French, for some time before the revolution in that island, is known to have been very large.

For about two years after the breaking out of the maritime war of 1793, the slave trade on the west coast of Africa suffered a considerable interruption.

The French and Dutch were entirely driven from it, and the captures made from the English greatly discouraged their trade on that open and unprotected coast. Our maritime successes, and the capture of Dutch Guiana, combined to revive it, and the English share of the slave trade rose to the enormous amount of 55,000 slaves in a single year. The only other nations that, during this period, and down to the year 1810, were engaged in the slave trade of Western Africa were the Portuguese and Americans. The number carried off by the Portuguese has been estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000 annually, and by the Americans about 15,000. Notwithstanding the prohibitory act of America, which was passed in 1807, ships bearing the American flag continued to trade for slaves until 1809, when, in consequence of a decision in the English prize appeal courts, which rendered American slave ships liable to capture and condemnation, that flag suddenly disappeared from the coast. Its place was almost instantaneously supplied by the Spanish flag, which, with one or two exceptions, was now seen for the first time on the African coast, engaged in covering the slave trade.

This sudden substitution of the Spanish for the American flag seemed to confirm what was established in a variety of instances by more direct testimony, that the slave trade, which now, for the first time, assumed a Spanish dress, was in reality only the trade of other nations in disguise.

Query 5. To what parts of the continent of North or South America, or the islands in the West Indies, have these slaves been carried? Answer 5. The slaves formerly taken from the coast by the French, Dutch, and Danes, were almost exclusively for the supply of their own colonies.

Until the abolition of the British and American slave trade, the Portuguese carried the slaves taken by them from the coast, with scarcely any exceptions, to the Brazils.