and freedom have so often and so readily responded, telling of perpetuated wrongs, and summoning to new exertion. The African Slave Trade again! The African Slave Trade? What, the exposed, the execrated, the condemned, the abolished Slave Trade-has this risen from the grave to torment the world anew? Alas! it has never been either buried or dead. Amidst the silence of supposed extinction it has survived; and more, it has gathered fresh energy and perpetrated aggravated crimes. O! if the generation were now alive whose determined zeal fought that desperate battle, and won that delusive semblance of a triumph; who witnessed the efforts, listened to the eloquence, and sustained the demands of Sharpe, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and their compeers, how their hearts would thrill, and their resolution be nerved, at the appeal now made! Not that we think the present generation less humane or less determined than their predecessors-numerous and unequivocal indications forbid us to think so; but it is their misfortune, in relation to the Slave Trade, not only that the subject is new to them, but that, believing the infamous traffic to have been suppressed, they regard all statements respecting it with a primary incredulity, which, to the ordinary difficulty of awakening sympathy, superadds an unusual difficulty of producing conviction. It is to this object more particularly that Mr. Buxton addresses himself in the important volume now before us, in which with deep feeling and earnestness he combines, in an eminent degree, research, calmness, and impartiality. His statements are at the utmost distance from being either vague, exaggerated, or passionate. He exercises even exemplary candour. He might honestly have made his case much stronger than he has made it; but it is more than strong enough to answer his purpose. His book, by the preparation of which he has created for himself a new title to the gratitude of Africa, and of every friend of the African race, must be read and pondered -it should be universally read, and deeply pondered. To us it is a sacred duty, as well as a melancholy pleasure, to do what we can for the diffusion of the authentic and afflictive information thus presented to the public. Mr. Buxton adverts in the first instance to the extent to which the African Slave Trade is at the present moment carried on. And this he considers under two divisions. He computes first the number annually conveyed across the Atlantic, and sold as slaves. Under this head he notices Brazil, Cuba, Buenos Ayres, Porto Rico, and Texas; adducing copious evidence, every item of which is trustworthy and convincing, but a great part of which he declines to employ as an element of his numerical calculation, because it is not official and demonstrative. The number which he thus brings out is unquestionably far below the truth; but it has this advantage, that its accuracy cannot be disputed. Of his calculations under this head he gives the following summary. "I have then brought the case to this point. There is Slave Trading, although to an unknown and indefinite amount, into Porto Rico; into Texas; and into some of the South American republics. There is the strongest presumptive evidence, that the Slave Trade into the five ports* of Brazil which have been noticed, is much more considerable than my estimate makes it; and that I have also underrated the importation of negroes into Cuba. There are even grounds for suspicion that there are other places (besides Porto Rico, Texas, Cuba, Monte Video, &c., and Brazil) where slaves are introduced; but for all these presumptions I reckon nothing, I take no account of them; I limit myself to the facts which I have established, viz., that there are, at the present time, imported annually into Brazil That the annual importations into Cuba amount to That there have been captured And I assume that the casualties amount to 78,333 60,000 8,294 3,373 Besides the traffic across the Atlantic,' our author informs us that there is an immense trade carried on for the supply of the 'Mohammedan markets of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, and the borders of Asia. This commerce 'comprises two distinct divisions, 1st, the maritime, the victims of 'which are shipped from the north-east coast, in Arab vessels, and 2nd, the Desert, which is carried on, by means of caravans, 'to Barbary, Egypt, &c.' The numbers which he adopts, with the same candour as before, are— For the maritime Trade For the Desert trade 30,000 20,000 !50,000 150,000 on. Add the number exported to the west Giving a total of Africans annually sold} 200,000 as slaves We will not stop to say, that this is melancholy. Let us go If the number annually enslaved is fearful, the number who annually perish is more so. 'For every ten who reach * Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Maranham, and Para. 'Cuba or Brazil,' says Mr. Buxton, and become available as slaves, fourteen at least are destroyed.' To account for this terrific destruction of life, let it be considered in the first place, how the persons are obtained whom it is intended to sell as slaves. Of course they do not yield themselves up voluntarily; force is used: and 'every species of violence, 'from the invasion of an army to that of robbery by a single indi'vidual, is had recourse to for the attainment of this object.' In truth the interior of Africa is desolated with slave-making wars. Let our readers take the following specimen. Mr. Ashmun, agent of the American Colonial Society, in writing to the Board of Directors, from Liberia, in 1823, says, The following incident I relate, not for its singularity, for similar events take place, perhaps, every month in the year, but it has fallen under my own observation, and I can vouch for its authenticity:-King Boatswain, our most powerful supporter, and steady friend among the natives, (so he has uniformly shown himself,) received a quantity of goods on trust from a French slaver, for which he stipulated to pay young slaves-he makes it a point of honour to be punctual to his engagements. The time was at hand when he expected the return of the slaver, and he had not the slaves. Looking around on the peaceable tribes about him for his victims, he singled out the Queaks, a small agricultural and trading people of most inoffensive character. His warriors were skilfully distributed to the different hamlets, and making a simultaneous assault on the sleeping occupants in the dead of the night, accomplished, without difficulty or resistance, in one hour, the annihilation of the whole tribe;—every adult, man and woman, was murdered-every hut fired! Very young children, generally, shared the fate of their parents; the boys and girls alone were reserved to pay the Frenchman.”—pp. 57, 58. There is reason to believe that, in these wars, as a general rule, the captives reserved for sale are fewer than the slain.' p. 73. But these have yet far to go before they can be sold into slavery. What becomes of them on the march? On this point our author gives some most affecting details, for which we cannot make room; we must give, however, the following brief extract from a letter of Dr. Holroyd, in relation to the march across the desert. 'I will give you from the mouth, and nearly in the words, of a female slave at Cairo, her account of the journey across the Desert to Siout. We had a long, long journey, and we suffered very much. We had not food enough to eat, and sometimes we had no drink at all, and our thirst was terrible. When we stopped, almost dying for want of water, they killed a camel and gave us his blood to drink. But the camels themselves could not get on, and then they were killed, and we had their flesh for meat and their blood for water. Some of the people were too weak to get on, and so they were left in the Desert to die.'-pp. 84–85. The number of those who die, merely on the journey from the interior to the coast, has been estimated at five twelfths, or nearly one half of the whole. And when they have reached the coast, what then? There is no ship, or she is not ready to sail, or she delays, for fear of a British cruiser. The Africans are therefore detained-in circumstances how horrible our readers must consult the volume before us to know; but we must give them a sample. 'Mr. Leonard informs us, that about 1830, the king of Loango told the officers of the Primrose that he could load eight slave-vessels in one week, and give each 400 or 500; but that, having now no means of disposing of the greater part of his prisoners, he was obliged to kill them. And, shortly before the Primrose arrived, a great number of unfortunate wretches, who had been taken in a predatory incursion, after having been made use of to carry loads of the plundered ivory, &c., to the coast, on their arrival there, as there was no market for them, and as the trouble and expense of their support would be considerable, they were taken to the side of a hill, a little beyond the town, and coolly knocked on the head.''—pp. 90, 91. The miserable remnant left by disease, starvation, and the sword, are now on board ship, and crossing the ocean, on what has been technically called the middle passage, the horrors of which surpass both description and imagination. We cannot here do any justice to the subject by an extract. The average loss on the middle passage appears to be one third of the cargo. Or if the vessel is captured on the African side of the Atlantic, and the voyage prevented, there is still a loss of life varying from one sixth to one half of the whole number. And if, having made the voyage, they are landed and sold as slaves, it is shown that one half of the survivors die in the seasoning. The author gives the general result of his inquiries in the following appalling passage. 'We have thus brought into a narrow compass the mortality arising from the Slave Trade. So that for every 1000 negroes alive at the end of a year after their deportation, and available to the planter, we have a sacrifice of 1450. Let us apply this calculation to the number landed annually in Cuba, Brazil, &c., which, as I have already shown (p. 26) may be fairly rated at 150,000; of these 20 per cent, or 30,000, die in the seasoning, leaving 120,000 available for the planter. 'If 150,000 were landed, there must have been embarked 25 per cent, or 37,500 more, who perish in the passage: and if 187,500 were embarked, 100 per cent, or 187,500 more, must have been sacrificed in the seizure, march, and detention. It is impossible for any one to reach this result, without suspecting, as well as hoping, that it must be an exaggeration; and yet there are those who think that this is too low an estimate. 'I have not, however, assumed any fact, without giving the data on which it rests ; neither have I extracted from those data any immoderate inference. I think that the reader, on going over the calculation, will perceive that I have, in almost every instance, abated the deduction, which might with justice have been made. If then we are to put confidence in the authorities (most of them official) which I have quoted, we cannot avoid the conclusion,-terrible as it is,-that the Slave Trade between Africa and America annually subjects to the horrors of slavery 120,000 30,000 37,500 187,500 Annual loss to Africa We are not now about to indulge ourselves in passionate exclamations. The emotions excited by the contemplation of such a state of things are too big for words. There must be cherished a deep, a solemn, a holy purpose to pursue this system of nameless crimes, atrocities, and horrors to its extinction; a purpose by the execution of which alone we can either fulfil the imperative dictates of humanity, or discharge ourselves of our responsibility to our fellow men and to our Maker. But has not the voice of the British nation condemned the Slave Trade, and, in obedience to it, has not the power of the British government been, for thirty years, unceasingly directed to its suppression? We admit this. But what is the effect of the admission? Only to render it unspeakably more mortifying that the Slave Trade should be continued in spite of us. The galling and melancholy fact stares us in the face, that notwithstanding twenty millions of money, probably as many thousands of lives, and scores of treaties, we have not suppressed this wickedness. Under the utmost pressure of our exertions for the third part of a century, it has increased, both in extent and atrocity. We are not called upon to say, that our interference has done no good, or |