§ V.—SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE.

SLAVERY is an arrangement characteristic of one of those stages through which society must pass in its transition from the utter anarchy of the savage state to the ascendancy of law and public morality. The savage is improvident and fickle : the more pro- vident and aspiring minds, to whose exertions all civilization can be traced back, could only carry their plans into effect by obtain- ing from the captives made in feuds, or from the destitute they relieved in years of famine, pledges of implicit and unconditional obedience to all their commands. Thus were slaves first made : slaves existed before civil communities with laws existed. Abraham was the head of a family, independent of any state or government ; and he had slaves. In the most ancient laws and institutions of Rome—in the unlimited power attributed to the head of the family over his children, his slaves, and his debtors—we can trace the Abrahams of Italy, settled within the walls of one city, subjecting themselves to laws much in the same way that nations now do among themselves, each reserving his unlimited power over his do- mestic subjects. Slavery originated in the economical necessities of society : it existed before laws and nations : it was regulated by law as a fact—as an existing relation of society, which law could neither make nor unmake. Slavery has died out in Europe, be- cause it has been found to be quite as disadvantageous to the master as to the slave, and because men's sense of justice and humanity have become too refined to tolerate it. Its abolition was sufficiently gradual. To say nothing of scattered traces of its pre- vious existence—such as among the Scotch colliers and salt-makers, who were slaves till near the close of last century, and the kidnapping for the Plantations about the middle of the century—some eight hundred years ago as brisk an export-trade in slaves was carried on at Bristol as now at Whydah. "We gather from the life of Wa]- dim, who was consecrated Bishop of Worcester .s. D. 1062, that Bristol was, from its convenience as a port, especially for embarka- tion to Ireland, used commonly for the purpose of exporting slaves : a practice which Walstan denounced to the Conqueror; who for- bade but failed utterly to extinguish, the inhuman traffic, by a royal edict."

The Negroland of Africa, viewed exclusively with regard to its internal relations, is in the same state that other regions have been in at the same stage of civilization. There is slavery there, and a slave-trade between the different petty states into which it is parcelled out : a state of matters that time and civilization alone can alter. But the slavery in which Negroes are held among races of a different colour and more advanced civilization, and still more the trade by which the superior nations-procure supplies of slaves from Africa, have peculiar features. Slavery is an institution which under any circumstances leads to abuse of power ; but in Negro slavery among alien races its evils are aggravated. The Negro who is slave to a Mahometan suffers cruelly when his master is harsh and tyrannical; but he is a domestic slave, and not shut out from human sympathy. If he becomes a Mahometan, he is free, and may rise to honourable and profitable employment. The revolting part of the relation between Negro slaves and Mahomet- ans is the process of procuring them—the slave-hunts, and the " mid- dle-passage " across the desert. The Negro slavery and slave-trade of Europeans is far more atrocious. An immense majority of the Negroes owned by Europeans are not domestic slaves ; they are viewed rather as beasts of burden' or as pieces of machinery. Marked as a separate race by their features and colour, employed principally in the field or boiling-house, separated in respect to in- telligence and sentiment by a wide gulf from their masters, they awaken no fellow-feeling. And the " middle-passage " of the Negro across the ocean is as full of suffering as across the desert— of suffering exaggerated by the wholesale scale on which the trade is conducted. The slave-trade aggravates and prolongs the bar- barism of Africa. Negro slavery demoralizes the slave-owners As well as the slaves. This is no merely economical consideration : even though slavery could be proved to be the source of wealth and power, it is a moral blot on the character of the European race—a festering and pestilential sore—which must be eradicated. Negro slavery and the Negro slave-trade must be put down.

It would be useless to inquire whether the line of operations pursued by Great Britain for this end since 1807 has been the best that could be adopted. The past is past. Nay, more, the progress which has been made in the course of thirty-five years, the arrangements which have become familiar to those engaged in trying to put down the slave-trade, and to the existence of which lukewarm and even hostile nations have become more than half reconciled by custom, are not to be rashly abandoned. Some- thing has been done ; a machinery, such as it is, exists ; and these afford a vantage-ground from which to start in the career of a wiser policy.

Throughout all the territories belonging to the British Crown the Negroes have been emancipated. That is one great step. The surest way to put an end to the African slave-trade, is to put an end to the demand for Negro slaves. The abolition of slavery throughout the British Colonies permanently withdraws from the slave-markets any demand that possibly could come from that quarter. But much more is required. An effort must be made to show those Tropical countries which still cling to slavery, that this moral triumph has entailed no counterbalancing sacrifice ; tha economically, as well as morally, all parties have gained by the change. If this can be done, the slave-holding countries will follow our example from interested motives ; and the abolition of slavery will create that high and delicate sense of the rights Of all human beings, which at present does not exist among them and to which therefore we should appeal in vain. On the other hand, if we do not succeed in making free-labour at least as available as slave- labour, we shall have given to the slave-owners an additional motive for adhering, to slavery, and, by affording them an ad- vantage over us in the markets of the world, a stimulus to increase the number of their slaves and the activity of the slave-trade. The renewed keenness of the pursuit will strengthen the habit, and all the vices to which the slave-owner is peculiarly liable will become more intense and deeply-rooted. We shall have given fresh vigour and a longer existence to that "abominable thing."

We have induced many nations of the European race to forbid their subjects to engage in the slave-trade. We have obtained from them promises of cooperation with a view to its suppression. We have sent active and daring cruisers to the latitudes within which the slave-trade is carried on. We have subjected the slavers to great losses. We have increased the difficulty and expense of pro- curing slaves. We have, in short, made the slave-trade more hazardous as a speculation ; and we have rendered it fashionable among the governments of the world to profess hostility to the slave-trade. This is all clear gain. Men run from trades in which profits are becoming precarious ; and the one great step towards making society really virtuous, is to make it a point of honour to conform punctiliously to the external appearances of virtue. This, however, is the extreme point to which our present system of operations can carry us ; and this is going but a very short way towards the completion of the great enterprise we have taken upon us. We have made the slave-trade less safely profitable, but we have not made it unprofitable. We have made it more of a gambling trade, but perhaps on that account more tempting to the desperadoes best qualified to succeed in it. Brazil and Cuba may get fewer slaves, at higher prices ; but as many are brought to the coast of Africa for a chance of shipment—as many are embarked. They are more cruelly treated on shore, for, owing to the precarious state of the trade, they fetch a lower price in Africa; and they suffer more on the middle-passage, for every economy of space and provision is adopted to counterbalance the risk of capture. Fear of loss, too, makes the slave-smugglers more reckless and cruel.

Sir Fowell Buxton's book on the Slave-trade proves the truth of these assertions ; and on this point Sir Fowell is a witness above suspicion. We have harassed the slave-traders ; we have paved the way to the destruction of the slave-trade ; but we have not di- minialied the number of human sufferers, and we have increased the intensity of their tortures. The most striking and convincing evi- dence we have seen on these points is contained in the examination of Mr. Macgregor Laird before the West African Committee of the House of Commons of last session.* Mr. Laird proved that the supply of slaves to be had in Africa at a moment's warning is un- diminished—

" You can always get slaves. For instance, it is slid that King Peppel has put down the slave-trade : supposing the blockading system that the navy has lately adopted was given up on these rivers, and a slaver was to run in, King Peppel would ship slaves in forty-eight hours; and if he could not get slaves from the interior immediately, he would put in half his own town."

Their price on the coast too is lower—" They are very cheap now, much cheaper than when the legitimate trade was carried on." Mr. Laird demonstrates the impossibility of putting a stop to the slave-trade merely by forcible repression-

" Sir T. D. Acland. Have we not in point of fact put down the slave- trade in the Bights ? "—" There is nothing easier than taking a certain li- mited line of coast and putting down the slave-trade there : it is much checked but not put down." "Mr. G. Wood. If you can do that, would not an extension of the naval force adequate to the extent of the coast be effectual in putting it down altogether ? "—" I should suppose that the extent of the Western coast is 4,000 miles, and on the East coast it extends from Cape Gnardafin to Port Natal; say 8,000 miles in all. I hold it to be quite impossible to put down the slave- trade along the whole coast. I suppose that we have now one-fourth in number of our navy employed in suppressing the slave-trade; and if we em- ployed every pennant we have on the coast of Africa, the slave-trade would still go on, and with more aggravated cruelty, if the demand on the other side of the water continued."

We refer to Sir Fowell Buxton's book for a picture of the horrors of slave-smuggling. Mr. Laird, in his straightforward natural manner, conveys a striking image of it— "There is one case, a schooner of 29 tons, belonging to Porto Rico, which was discovered with the masts taken out of her, hauled up among the man- groves of the Snow River, which I was in : information was given of her; she was taken by a cruiser, and she was released afterwards. But only think of a vessel of 29 tons going to the coast of Africa to take slaves to Porto Rico."

The truth is, that the British Legislature and Government, in their attempts to suppress the slave-trade, have repeated the error which they have committed in their attempts to repress home- grown crime : they have relied exclusively upon forcible prevention. It is not enough to keep men from doing mischief, you must keep them doing good. The repressive force midway on the Atlantic cannot complete its task unless aided by moral agents at work among the importing slave-marts in America and the exporting slave-marts in Africa. What is required in America has already been pointed out—to demonstrate experimentally, by the success of free labour in our own Colonies, that slavery is a losing as well as an immoral trade ; to cut off the demand for slaves. 'What is required in Africa is the promotion of civilization and the spirit of legitimate commerce among the natives. The slave-trade has created a demand for European goods along the African coast : if the slave-trade be merely stopped and no legitimate trade intro- duced in its place, the natives will merely wait for an opportunity of renewing the sale of slaves. The introduction of a legitimate commerce will supply the vacuum ; and a trade in the produce of the country will grow up under the protection of the cruisers, which in time will render it possible to withdraw them without resuscitating the slave-trade. The slavers have created a market for the legitimate trader. "I consider it," said Mr. Laird before the Committee, "a very fortunate thing that, the slave-trade existing, it is carried on in British goods ; because the instant you stop the slave-trade, the instant it is effectually put down, the demand for these goods will remain with the natives, and they will raise produce to buy them." Experience has confirmed this opinion : the legitimate trader (backed by the cruisers) has driven the slaver from Cape Coast and the Bonny ; and, under the judicious management of Captain M`Lean, habits of settled order and obe- dience to law are gaining ground at the former. Where the slave- trade has not been succeeded by a legitimate commerce, prisoners of war are put to death instead of being sold as slaves. Coona, a Krooman examined by the West African Committee, gave the fol- lowing evidence— "Do they ever make slaves in your country when they make war ?"—" We kill them : if they are not killed they go back again. If they do not kill them, they keep them for work ; they do not sell them." "Suppose you catch twenty men at any place where you go to fight, what do you do with those twenty men ?"—" We kill them."

"Why do yen kill them ? "—" Because they would go back again, and fight again." "Suppose you catch a number of prisoners, do you fetch some for work and kill some? "—" If we keep some for work, they will run away to their own country." • • • • "Suppose a Spaniard came, and wanted to buy the men you had taken pri- soners in war, would you sell them ?"—" No, we would sooner kill them than sell them as slaves ; for if a man-of-war knows of it, they make plenty of palaver." • • • • " Suppose you catch women and cbidren, what do you do with them ? "— • Part I. pp. 331-341, and 345-353. "If they take women in the war, they are killed; for we are not allowed to make them wives, and we cannot make them slaves."

"Do they kill the children too ? "—" Yes, they kill the children they cut the women and children in two pieces."

The same effects may be produced on other parts of the coast; and men who have only been converted from man-stealers into man-slayers by the suppression of the slave-trade, are apt pupils for the lessons of violence taught them—for instance, landing and destroying the barracoons belonging to the Spanish and Por- tuguese slavers on their shores, contrary to the law of nations.

Another measure which would cooperate with commerce in hastening the civilization of Africa, is the free intercourse between the civilized Negro population of the West Indies and the rude Negro population of Western Africa, which would ensue from the permission of a voluntary emigration of free labourers from Africa. Mr. Laird, in the course of his evidence above referred to, says— "I think that, it being impossible to civilize the Negroes, or protect them on their own coast, if you wish to benefit them you had better bring them in con- tact with Europeans in the West Indies." And again—" The great benefit that I would expect in this emigration from Africa, would be in the return of those people to Africa with improved civilization : so that I would make it a sine qua non that they should be allowed to return after a certain tune, at the public cost, to the place whence they came."

This suggestion, it is clear, points to the advantage of our West India Colonies as well as of Africa. It promises to supply the deficiency of continuous labour, which has been complained of since Negro-emancipation. It is a method of working out the American part of the problem, by cheapening free labour and destroying the demand for slaves ; and at the same time the African part of it by making the Negroes too civilized to sell their fellows or allow- themselves to be sold to slavery, and cutting off the supply of slaves. The suppressing system, in combination with these great experiments on both coasts of the Atlantic, will be able to put down the slave-trade, but not without them. This is what we undertake to expound under the head 9f "The British West India Colonies."