Anonymous BENEFACTIONS. Mrs. Broughton, Holborn Hill (Produce of a Missionary Box) for Henry Gloucester Ryder (second year) 50. for Catherine Bridges Mary Curtis Margaret Tucker, and Hastings Elwin, For Buchanan Pratt, and Rachael For Daniel Corrie, Abdool Messech, Martyn Pratt, Mary Allen, Elizabeth Currie,· Hannah More, (first year) (second year) (third year) 160 0 (fourth year) ·Cæcilius Cyprian, Thomas Spencer, Mary Fletcher, Charles Storer, John Hensman; By Leeds Association: for Miles Jukinson, Robert Chulmly, (fourth year) By White Rothings (Essex) for John Grundy Thompson (first year) 5 25 0 0 (second year) 5 0 .. (sixth year) 5 From a deceased Friend at Sheffield, by Messrs. William and George? Page 148, for Brackenburg, read Brackenbury; and for Sibthorpe, read Sibthorp. MAY, 1819. Reports of Societies. THIRTEENTH REPORT OF THE AFRICAN INSTITUTION: ¡DELIVERED MARCH 24, 1819. (Treasurer-John Thornton, Esq. King's Arms Yard, Coleman Street.) By the Twelfth Report of the Institution, which we gave very much at large in the Number for August of last year, our Readers will have seen the vigilance with which the Directors embrace every opportunity of furthering the utter extinction of that Guilty Traffic which still holds Africa in chains. The present Report is almost entirely occupied with the same melancholy subject. In truth, till the Great Victory is achieved, for which the Friends of Africa are contending, no permanent blessings can be conferred on her Western Shores. That this Victory will be ultimately achieved, no Christian can reasonably doubt: nor will he be discouraged by difficulties and delays, knowing that it is the usual course of the Divine Government, to appoint such ́obstacles as trials of Faith and Patience. The Great Powers of Europe and America are now fairly committed on this momentous subject, in the presence of Him who has said, Though hand join in hand, the Wicked shall not go unpunished. In the mean while, how honourable is the post which Providence has assigned to this Country! and she seems, in her public acts, solicitous to discharge her high duty, as the Advocate with the Civilized World of the injured African. She negociates Treaties, in which his liberty and happiness occupy her chief concern; while she labours to win other Powers to follow her own self-denying example: and we trust that a prompt and efficient execution, on her part, of all the stipulations into which she may have entered or shall hereafter enter, will demonstrate her own integrity, and stimulate others to act like her. The United States of America, which, in common with Great Britain, partake more largely than other countries in the blessings of liberty, appear to meet her views with frankness: and though, with respect to them and to the European Powers, various obstacles at present oppose the measures which seem requisite to the immediate and final extinction of the Slave Trade, steady perseverance in the honourable course on which the Friends of Africa have entered will, no doubt, ensure, with the blessing of God, the full triumph of their labours. A full and lucid statement is given in the Report, both of the Conferences which have taken place between the Allied Powers of Europe for the Extinction of the Slave Trade, and of the Negociation of Great Britain with the United States on the same subject. We shall quote the entire statement, as every public, measure of this nature occupies a most important place in the eye of the true friend of mankind, May, 1819. 2 C CONFERENces of the allied pOWERS, FOR THE EXTINCTION OF the slave trade. In the Treaty concluded at Paris, between the Allies and France, in November 1815, an Additional Article provided for Conferences among their respective Ministers, without loss of time, on the most effectual measures "for the entire and definitive Abolition of a Commerce so odious, and so strongly condemned by the Laws of Religion and of Nature." (See our Volume for 1816, p. 221.) Of the Conferences which took place in fulfilment of this Article, the Report gives the following account. CONFERENCE, IN LONDON, IN DEC. 1817. In the month of December, 1817, the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, held a Conference in London upon this subject; and Lord Castlereagh, as the Plenipotentiary of Great Britain, presented the two Conventions then recently concluded with Portugal and Spain. King of Portugal and his Britannic Majesty, wherein it is stated, that the period when the said traffic is universally to cease and be prohibited in the Portuguese Dominions should be fixed by a Separate Treaty between these two Powers. On receiving a satisfactory answer upon these points, Count de Palmella engaged to take part in the proposed Conferences. CONFERENCE, IN LONDON, IN FEB. 1818. At a further Conference between the Plenipotentiaries of the Five Powers, held at London in February, 1818, Lord Castlereagh read a Note, containing ́a proposition for the purpose of abolishing the Slave Trade, rendered illicit by treaty; and it was agreed to adjourn the consideration of it, and to invite Count de Palmella to assist at the next Conference. A Note, dated the preceding February, addressed by Count de Palmella, the Portuguese Minister, to the Plenipotentiaries, was read. It stated, that the King of Portugal, not having signed the Addi. tional Article of the Treaty of Paris, did not consider himself bound to take a part in these Conferences; and the less so, as at the time when such Conferences were proposed at the Congress of Vienna, the Portuguese Plenipotentiaries positively refused to concur therein. Being nevertheless desirous of giving a further proof of his wish to co-operate in the accomplishment have received from this Institution, and Lord Castlereagh founds his proposition on information which he states himself to which is annexed to the Protocol of the Conference. His Lordship's Note is to the following effect: That, since the restoration of peace, a considerable revival of the Slave Trade had taken place, especially on that Part of the Coast of Africa which is north of the Line: this traffic being principally of an illicit description, the parties engaged in it had adopted the practice of carrying it on in armed and fast-sailing vessels; which not only threatened resistance to all legal attempts to repress this armed traffic, but, by their piratical practices, menaced the legitimate commerce of all nations on the coast with destruction of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the King had authorised Count de Palmella, notwithstanding the efforts and the sacrifices which it had already and must still cost the Brazils to accomplish it, to accept the invitation of the Plenipotentiaries to take part in their Conferences, upon the following conditions:-1. That, in conformity to the solemn Declaration of the Congress of Vienna, due regard should be had, in proceeding to the Abolition of the Slave Trade, to the interests, the customs, and even the prejudices of the subjects of those Powers which still permit this traffic. 2. That each of these Powers, having the right to enact the final Abolition at the period which it may judge most expedient, cruizers, than to serve for the transport of human that period should be fixed upon between them by means of negociation. And, 3. That the general negociation which might ensue, should in no way prejudice the stipu lation of the Fourth Article of the Treaty of the 22d of Janury, 1815, between the That the trade thus carried on was marked with increased horrors, from the inhuman manner in which these desperate adventurers were in the habit of crowding the Slaves on board vessels, better adapted to escape from the interruption of beings That as the improvement of Africa, especially in a commercial point of view, had advanced in proportion as the Slave Trade had been suppressed, so, with its revival, every prospect of industry and of amendment appeared to decline That the British Government had made con-. siderable exertions to check the growing evil and that, during the war, and whilst in possession of the French and Dutch Settlements on that coast, their endeavours had been attended with very considerable success; but that since the restoration of those possessions, and more especially since the return of peace had rendered it illegal for British Cruizers to visit vessels sailing under Foreign Flags, the trade in Slaves had greatly increased That the British Government, in the performance of this act of moral duty, had invariably wished, as far as possible, to avoid giving umbrage to any friendly Power That, with this view, as early as July 1816, a Circular Order had been issued to all British Cruizers, requiring them to advert to the fact,. that the right of search (being a belligerent right) had ceased with the war, and directing them to ab stain from exercising it That the difficulty of distinguishing in all cases the fraudulent from the licit Slave-Traders, (of the former of whom many were doubtless British Subjects, feloniously carrying on this traffic in defiance of the laws of their own country,) had given occasion to the detention of a number of vessels, upon grounds which the Prince Regent's Government could not sanction; and, in reparation for which seizures, due compensation had been assigned, in the late Conventions with Spain and Portugal That it was, however, proved, beyond the possibility of doubt, that unless the right to visit vessels engaged in the Slave Trade should be established by mutual concessions on the part of the Maritime States, the illicit traffic will, in time of peace, not only continue to subsist, but must increase That the system of obtaining fraudulent Papers, and concealing the real ownership, was now conducted with such address, as to render it easy for the subjects of all States to pursue this traffic, so long as it shall remain legal to the subjects of any one State That even if the traffic were agreed to be uni versally abolished, and a single State should refuse to submit its flag to the visitation of vessels of other States, the illicit Slave-Traders would still have the means of eluding detection That thus the Portuguese Slave-Trader, since it had become unlawful for him to appear north of the Line, had been found to conceal himself under the Spanish Flag; and that the American, and even the British Dealer, had, in like manner, assumed a foreign disguise; many instances having occurred of British Subjects evading the laws of their country, either by establishing houses at the Havannah, or obtaining false Papers for their ships That if such had been the case in time of war, when neutral flags were legally subjected to the visit of the belligerent cruizer, the evil must increase tenfold, now that peace had extinguished this right; and that even British Ships, by fraudu lently assuming a foreign flag, might, with a prospect of impunity, carry on the traffic That the obvious necessity of combining the repression of the illicit Slave Trade with the measure of Abolition, in order to render the latter in any degree effectual, had been admitted both by the Spanish and Portuguese Governments; in furtherance of which principle, the late Conventions had been negociated: but that, whilst the system established by these Conventions is confined to the Three Powers who are parties to them, and whilst the flags of other Maritime States, and more especially those of France, Holland", Holland afterwards entered into a similar Con vention. and the United States, are not included, the effect must be to vary the ostensible character of the fraud, rather than in any material degree to suppress the mischief That 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 was submitted, that they owed it to themselves, to unite their endeavours without delay for that purpose: and, as the best means, it was proposed that the Five Powers now assembled in Conference, under the third additional Article of the Treaty of Paris, should conclude an agreement 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, and which might embrace the following general provisions: 1. An engagement, by effectual enactments, to render not only the import of Slaves into their respective dominions illegal, bat 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. 2. An engagement mutually to concede the right of visit to their respective ships of war, furnished with the proper instructions ad hoc; the visit to be made under the inspection of a Commissioned Officer, and no vessel to be detained unless Slaves should be actually found on board. 3. The adoption of such minor regulations as were established in the Conventions with Spain and Portugal, with such further modifications as might appear calculated to obviate abuse, and to render the system, if possible, more unobjectiona ble as a general law, applicable to this particular evil. His Lordship proceeded to remark:-That, after the Abolition should have become general, the laws of each particular State might possibly, in a course of years, be made in a great measure effectual to exclude import; that the measures to be taken on the Coast of Africa would then become comparatively unimportant; but that, 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, should afford to the illicit Slave-Trader irresistible temptations to pursue this abominable but lucrative traffic, so long nothing but the vigilant superintendence of an armed and international police on that coast could be expected successfully to cope with such prac. tices.j That, 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 just and humane policy of Abolition; the force necessary to repress the same being supplied, according to their conve nience, by the Powers having possessions or local interests in Africa, which might induce them to station ships of war in that quarter of the globe: but that the endeavours of these Powers must be ineffectual, unless supported by a general alliance, framed for this especial purpose; and unless all nations should 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, would be defeated. That at the outset, some difficulty might occur in the execution of a common system; and especially |
