more able to decide it now, with a prospect of success, than any person could have done in 1807.

The following points must be firmly established before any adequate success can be expected to follow the greatest efforts:

1st. That the prohibition be positive and universal, and that all persons agree in the same regulations for its extinction.

2d. That the penalties inflicted on persons and property engaged in it be severe and certain.

3d. That power be given to all the contracting parties to enforce these regulations; that the force employed for this purpose be adequate to the object for which it is intended, and that the remuneration offered to the persons employed in this service be certain, and easily obtained.

It must be clear and evident, that, whilst any one power is allowed to carry on the trade, the subjects of the other powers, wishing to be engaged in it, will cover themselves under the flag of the permitting power; and, from the experience these men have had in the art of fraudulent disguise, will cover themselves beyond the possibility of detection. We need look no further for a proof of this than to the difference between the Spanish slave trade before the war, in the years 1808, 1809, and now

,

It is also clear, that, to make this a common cause, and not the cause of each state entering into the agreement, the regulations, provisions, and penalties, attached to it should be the same in all; and that it should not only be agreed upon between the states, but that every individual state should make a positive internal law upon the subject, embracing all the regulations, &c. And this is the more necessary, to prevent any future collisions or jealousies in enforcing the penalties; for, if the parties are honest in the cause, and the penalties to be inflicted by all the parties are equal, no difficulties can arise; but, if they are unequal, a very great ground is laid for complaints, reproaches, and disputes, which would at once destroy every thing which had previously been done.

As this may be a matter of much dispute, the following plan is proposed, as less liable to objection:

That all property found engaged in the trade, either in the inception, the prosecution, or the conclusion, be confiscated to the seizor's use, either by the courts of his own country, or by a tribunal to be specially appointed for that purpose.

That the sentence of inferior courts be final and conclusive whenever slaves are found on board.

That an appeal be allowed if no slaves are on board. That some further punishment should be inflicted on the parties engaged, which, in case of resistance, should be much severer than when

made; and that this punishment should be inflicted

tween the contracting parties.

That death should b

Neither agreements, regulations, or penalties, will be of any use, unless the contracting parties are determined, one and all, to enforce them upon every person found engaged in the trade; and, also, to use every means of detecting them. This is an object which cannot be obtained with a small force.

A large one must at first be employed; but there is every reason to believe that this force, if actively and properly employed, would soon render it safe to reduce it.

The whole coast of Africa will be frequented by the smugglers; and smugglers there will be, unless some very energetic measures are adopted to prevent the importation of slaves into the trans-atlantic world; and it is not to be supposed for a moment that the coast of Africa can be guarded by one ship.

Query 15. What progress had there been made during the war, to exclude the trade in slaves from the coast of Africa north of the line?

Answer 15. Whatever exclusion has taken place during the last war, must be attributed chiefly to the war itself, and the activity of the officers employed. Generally one, sometimes two, and now and then three ships of war were on the coast. After the settlement was formed in the Gambia the slave trade was completely excluded to the northward of Bissao; the trade between that place and Popo was reduced from a most extensive and open trade to a comparatively small and smuggling one. It was entirely suppressed for a considerable distance round the British settlements.

Query 16. What effect can be traced to have arisen from such exclusion, upon the interior civilization and industry, or upon the external commerce of this part of the coast, compared with what existed twenty years before?

Answer 16. The civilization, to a certain degree, of the natives for some distance around the British settlements, and in those places where the trade was entirely excluded, is the effect of the partial abolition; the natives have also become more peaceable and quiet, and have turned their attention to the arts of a civilized life, and have left off those practices whose only object was to procure slaves. In places where the exclusion of the trade has only been partial, these advantages have not arisen. Wars, kidnappings, and false trials, have not been so frequent, because the demand for slaves was small; still they existed, and the natives, with minds unchanged, continued to have recourse to them when slaves were wanted; no doubt can exist, but that these circumstances have affected the very interior of the continent, and that though not more civilized, yet they have been more peaceable and quiet since the abolition than before, for the slaves procured are not more in number than answer the present comparatively small demand. The effects upon the external commerce of the coast has been astonishing; compare the imports into England at present with what they were twenty years ago. Let it also be considered, that not one third, perhaps not one quarter, of the trade goes to England, and then some ideas may be formed of the capabilities of the coast of Africa to carry on an immense traffic in innocent articles. A complete exclusion would do more to promote this object in five years, than a partial one in fifty.

Query 17. State what measures are now in progress for the improvement of Africa, and how they are likely to be affected by the continuance of the trade, partially or generally?

Answer 17. Little can be here said upon the measures in progress for the civilization of Africa, which is not known already. Since Senegal and Goree have been transferred, those measures are nearly confined to Sierra Leone. Here the greatest improvements have been and are still making, and hence must the civilization of Africa proceed. With common attention a large number of persons may be educated, anxious and capable of spreading the blessings they have received throughout their native continent. But where the slave trade is allowed, no improvements can come; its pestiferous breath blasts at once the hopes of the philanthropist and the missionary, and a train of desolation, barbarity, and misery, follows close on the steps of the slave trader.

Query 18. Is there any reason to apprehend that the contraband trade may become extensive in time of peace, even on the coast north of the line, where so considerable a progress had been made to suppress the slave trade generally, if some decisive measures are not adopted by the powers conjointly to repress the same?

Answer 18. Of this, not a doubt can exist. It will be carried on more extensively and more ferociously than ever. It is since the conclusion of the war, that the large armed vessels have increased so very considerably. Whilst the war existed, and condemnation followed resistance, those persons who thought their property secure, if taken before courts of justice, sent out unarmed and heavy sailing vessels: now that there is no penalty attached to it, every person engaging in the trade will send to the coast vessels well armed and manned, with orders to fight their way through every obstacle: the wages they give are enormous, from seven to ten pounds per month; and in consequence, their vessels will be soon manned with entire crews of American and English sailors, the greatest enormities will be perpetrated, and unless not only the right of search, with condemnation for resistance, be allowed, but also very vigorous measures be adopted to inforce it, these crimes must all pass unpunished. Sierra Leone, April, 1817.

FOURTH ENCLOSURE IN No. 2.

Annex D to the Protocol of the Conference of the 4th of February, 1818. Letter of Z. Macauley, Esq. to Viscount Castlereagh, dated

LONDON, 20th of December, 1817.

MY LORD: I have been honored with your lordship's note of the 13th instant, acknowledging the receipt of the answers made on the 26th December, 1816, to the queries which your lordship had proposed relative to the then state of the African slave trade, and requesting the communication of such further intelligence as I might have since obtained. The answers to the same queries which I delivered last week to Mr. Planta, were written on the coast of Africa in the month of April last, and therefore apply to a period six months later than that to which my answers refer. Since that time I have not received from Africa any detailed communications on this subject. Such as I have received, I will now lay before your lordship.

Colonel Mac Carthy, the governor of Sierra Leone, in a letter dated 20th April, 1817, observes, "I am grieved to say that there is nothing favorable to state with respect to the slave trade, which has not only been renewed in those places from which it had been driven, but actually extended three times as far as at any period during the late war." This representation has been fully confirmed to me, and it is added, "that the slave trade is now openly and undisguisedly carried on both at Senegal and Goree."

Governor Mac Carthy, in a subsequent letter, dated 10th June, 1817, says, "The slave trade is carried on most vigorously by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans and French. I have had it affirmed from several quarters, and do believe it to be a fact, that there is a greater number of vessels employed in that traffic than at any former period." To the same effect are the letters I have received from Sierra Leone, which, under date of 28th June, 1817, state as follows: "The coast is crowded with slave ships, and no trade can be done where they are. We could get rice to Leeward, but dare not go there, as we are certain of being plundered by them. I saw it mentioned in a London newspaper, that a Carthagenian pirate had been plundering our vessels. It was an Havanna slave ship, and all the Spaniards who come on the coast swear to do the same whenever they have it in their power. If this should be suffered, we must give up all the trade, and leave the African coast to the slave dealers."

On the 20th of July, 1817, it is further stated as follows: "The slave trade is raging dreadfully on the coast. Goree has become quite an emporium of this traffic. Our merchants are losing the whole trade of the coast. The whole benefit of it accrues to the slave dealers. No other trade can be carried on where the slave trade prevails."

This view of the subject is confirmed in a report recently published by the Church Missionary Society in Africa and the east. The committee of that society, in communicating to its subscribers the substance of the information recently received from their missionaries on the windward coast of Africa, observe as follows. "The natives saw the missionaries sit down in the midst of them while the slave trade was yet a traffic, sanctioned by the laws of this country, and of the civilized world. They utterly disbelieved at first the professions of the missionaries; and, when at length brought by their patient and consistent conduct to believe them, yet, so debased were their minds by that traffic which our nation in particular had so long maintained among them, that they had no other value for the education offered to their children, than as they conceived it would make them more cunning than their neighbors. But the missionaries gladly became the teachers of their children, in the hope that they should outlive the difficulties which then opposed their mission. The act of abolition seemed to open a bright prospect to the friends of Africa. The numerous slave factories which crowded the Rio Pongas vanished, and Christian Churches began to spring up in their room. The country was gradually opening itself to the instruction of the missionaries, when the revival of the slave trade by some of the European powers proved a temptation too great to be resisted. At the moment when the natives began to assemble to hear the missionaries preach, and even to erect houses for the worship of God, at this moment their ancient enemy comes in like a flood, and, it is to be feared, will drive away our missionaries for a time. So great is the demoralizing effect of the slave trade, and so inveterate the evil habits which it generates, that it is not improbable it may be necessary to withdraw wholly for the present the society's settlements, formed beyond the precints of the colony of Sierra Leone." Subsequent accounts render it probable that this anticipation has been actually realized.

In addition to the facts already adduced to show the prevalence of the French slave trade, a letter from Dominica, dated 7th January, 1817, states, "that, in the month of November, 1816, a Portuguese brig, the Elenora, of Lisbon, with 265 Africans, from Gaboon, arrived off St. Pierre's, in Martinique; and, on the 25th of the same month, landed them at Carlet, between St. Pierre's and Fort Royal, the brig afterwards returning to the former port." It was also known that two vessels had been fitted out and despatched from St. Pierre's to the coast of Africa for slaves, and that at the same time a fast sailing schooner was about to depart for a similar purpose. "The impunity," it is added, “which these infractions of treaties meet with in the French colonies, will no doubt increase the repetition of them to an unbounded degree." In a subsequent letter, dated Dominica, 4th September, 1817, it is observed, " a few weeks ago a large ship arrived from the coast of Africa, and landed at Martinique more than five hundred slaves; they were disembarked some little distance from St. Pierre's, and marched in by twenties."

In addition to these instances of slave trading, I have to state, that a gentleman who returned about a fortnight since from a voyage to the coast of Africa, informed me, that, while he was lying, (about three or four months ago,) in the river Gambia, two French vessels, navigating under the white flag, carried off openly from that river, 350 slaves.

The following extract of a letter from Cape Coast Castle, 5th of March, 1817, shows that the Dutch functionaries in that quarter, notwithstanding the decrees of their government, are actively engaged in the slave trade. "We deem it our duty to inform you of the conduct of the governor of Elmina; we are well aware that a parti