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Bounded ambition, and extensive humanity, having induced His Faithful Majesty thus to contract the sphere in which his pious subjects shall exercise this laudable traffic, Great Britain has thought it only just to bestow on him a boon of three hundred thousand pounds sterling, for relinquishing the trade in Africa, north of the equator, after having already nearly desolated its western coast!!

Article 5. "The two high contracting powers, for the more complete attainment of their object, namely, the prevention of all illicit traffic in slaves, on the part of their respective subjects, mutually consent, that the ships of war of their royal navies, which shall be provided with special instructions for this purpose, as hereinafter provided, may visit such merchant vessels of the two nations, as may be suspected, upon reasonable grounds, of having slaves on board, acquired by an illicit traffic; and, in the event only of their actually finding slaves on board, may detain and bring away such vessels, in order that they may be brought to trial before the tribunals established for this purpose, as shall hereinafter be specified.

"Provided always, that the commanders of the ships of war of the two royal navies, who shall be employed on this service, shall adhere strictly to the exact tenor of the instructions which they shall have received for this purpose.

"As this article is entirely reciprocal, the two high contracting parties engage mutually to make good any losses which their respective subjects may incur unjustly, by the arbitrary and illegal detention of their vessels.

"It being understood that this indemnity shall invariably be borne by the government whose cruiser shall have been guilty of the arbitrary detention; provided always, that the visit and detention of slave ships, specified in this article, shall only be effected by those British or Portuguese vessels, which may form part of the two royal navies; and by those only of such vessels which are provided with the special instructions annexed to the present convention."

Article 6. "No British or Portuguese cruiser shall detain any slave ship, not having slaves actually on board; and in order to render lawful the detention of any ship, whether British or Portuguese, the slaves found on board such vessel, must have been brought there for the express purpose of the traffic; and those on board Portuguese ships must have been taken from that part of the coast of Africa, where the slave trade was prohibited by the treaty of the 22nd of January, 1815."

Article 7." All ships of war of the two nations, which shall hereafter be destined to prevent the illicit traffic in slaves, shall be

furnished by their own government with a copy of the instructions annexed to the present convention, and which shall be considered as an integral part thereof.

"These instructions shall be written in Portuguese and English, and signed for the vessels of each of the two powers, by the ministers of their respective marine."

It is obvious, that the tendency of this treaty has been to prevent Great Britain from restricting the slave trade; and to show how effectually that has been attained, will require but little commentary.

It is provided, that the slave vessels shall not be visited, except by ships of the royal navy, which are to be furnished with instructions for that special purpose, so that all colonial vessels, letters of marque, privateers, and even His Majesty's ships, not having special instructions, are excluded; but the paucity of vessels likely to be employed, need not be lamented, as it is evident that the entire British navy stationed on the African coast could not, in all probability, save in twelve months a single African from slavery; for by this treaty no vessel can be detained, that has not slaves on board, purchased for the express purpose of traffic, and taken from a part of Africa, on which the trade is prohibited. I cannot conceive it possible for the captain of a British ship of war, on a search at sea, to establish whether the slaves so found, were, or were not, purchased for sale, for public service, or for private employment; as His Faithful Majesty often sends for slaves, and merchants in the trade are generally possessed of extensive plantations on which they employ slaves: then as to the proof that the slaves have been taken from a part of Africa, to which the Portuguese are prohibited from trading for them, my perception is too limited to comprehend how that can be ascertained, unless those on board the British vessel have ocular demonstration of their being shipped north of the equator; and when an embarkation can be effected in an hour's time, why should a Portuguese captain be so infatuated as to take his slaves on board and put to sea, while a British cruiser was in view? what probability is there, that the Portuguese should trade without the line of demarcation, when, between the eastern and western boundary of coast, south of the equator, there are thirtythree degrees of latitude, abounding with human beings for whom they may lawfully trade, and thirteen degrees of that luxuriant country prescribed for depredation, are situated precisely opposite to the coast of Brazil ?

Article 8. "In order to bring to adjudication without the least delay and inconvenience the vessels that may be detained for having been engaged in an illicit traffic in slaves, there shall be established, within the space of a year from the exchange

of the ratification of the present convention, two mixed Commissions, formed of an equal number of individuals of the two nations, named for this purpose by their respective Sovereigns.

"These Commissions shall reside, one in the possession of His Britannic Majesty on the coast of Africa, and the other in the Brazils; these Commissions shall judge the causes submitted to them without appeal, and according to regulations and instruc-> tions annexed to the present convention."

Lest this extensive range of coast, and these positive injunctions, should not be sufficient to tranquillise the alarmed mind of the susceptible Portuguese, we find the instructions to the commanders of British ships of war, and the regulations for the mixed Commissions so decidedly restrictive, that there is no chance of a diminution in the trade, or a prospect for the liberation of a slave left, to feed a hope on. Every clause was provided that could facilitate the slave trade, nothing was omitted that could deter a commander from detaining a slave vessel; nor can the 'leisure of the Commissary Judges and Commissioners of arbitration ever be broken in upon, by the intrusion of any case for adjudication; unless a crafty Portuguese should inveigle at commander into a detention of his vessel, for the purpose of obtaining from the British Treasury the very liberal indemnity directed to be adjudged; yet as this is a treaty between friendly powers, for the express purpose of restricting the slave trade, I shall be more circumspect; and that the exact tendency of these instructions and regulations may be immediately perceived, I shall examine them in their order.

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Article 1. "Every British or Portuguese ship of war shall, in conformity with Article 5, of the additional convention of this date, have a right to visit the merchant ships of either of the two powers actually engaged, or suspected to be engaged in the slave trade; and should any slaves be found on board according to the tenor of the 6th Article of the aforesaid additional convention, and as to what regards the Portuguese vessels, should there be ground to suspect that the said slaves have been embarked on a part of the coast of Africa where the traffic in slaves can no longer be legally carried on, in consequence of the stipulations in force between the two high powers; in these cases alone, the commander of the said ship of war may detain them, and having detained them, he is to bring them, as soon as possible, for judgment before that of the two mixed Commissions appointed by the 8th Article of the additional convention of this date, which shall be the nearest, or which the commander of the capturing ship shall upon his own responsibility, think he can soonest reach from the spot where the slave ship shall have been detained.

"Ships on board of which no slaves shall be found intended for purposes of traffic, shall not be detained on any account or pretence whatever.

"Negro servants or sailors that may be found on board the said vessels, cannot, in any case, be deemed a sufficient cause for detention."

I have already shown the difficulty of proving any breach of the regulations established in the 6th Article of the Treaty, such as the slaves on board being brought there for the express purpose of traffic, and not intended for government, or private use, and taken from a part of the coast on which the trade is prohibited; and when it is considered that the log-books of the Portuguese slave vessels are expressly made up to avoid giving aid to a legal detention, that every person on board is interested in escaping from the captor, except the wretched slave who is ignorant of what passes, and incapable of communicating information, and that the captor is made heavily responsible for every act he cannot legally justify; it may be concluded, that a detention will not be often hazarded, and if, in mercy, it should be done, the inefficacy of carrying the slaves, so taken, to the Court established in the Brazils for adjudication, shall hereafter be fully explained.

Article 2. "No merchantman or slave ship can, on any account or pretence whatever, be visited or detained whilst in the port or roadsted belonging to either of the two high contracting Powers, or within cannon shot of the batteries on shore. But in case suspicious vessels should be found so circumstanced, proper representations may be addressed to the authorities of the country, requesting them to take effectual measures for preventing such abuses."

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By this article the most illicit slave trader may remain in safety any port or roadsted, over which His Most Faithful Majesty may choose to claim a right, (and we know this right to be derived from Papal authority, which could dispense half a hemisphere with as much indifference and as valid a title, as half an acre) until it suits his convenience either to tire out the watchfulness of the British cruiser, or escape from him through darkness, or in a tornado; but the idea of applying to the authorities on the African coast, and to request of those very persons, who receive all their luxuries by the sale of their people, to abrogate the trade, turn away the purchasers of their only commodity, and cut off every source of comfort and aggrandisement, is absolutely ludicrous !!

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Article 3. "The high contracting Powers allow vessels north of the equator, having slaves on board, to be seized even within

cannon shot of the shore, in case there are no legal authorities to whom recourse might be had." Who is to determine that there are or are not legal authorities to whom recourse may be had? There are kings and chiefs on the entire western coast, and will a commander of a king's ship, on the severe responsibility affixed by this treaty to improper detention, determine, against the application of the Portuguese captain to the local authority of the King of Dahomy, King Tom, Mungo Catty, John Pierse, or of fifty other chieftains, equally respectable, that such authority shall not be considered legal?

Article 4. "No Portuguese slave ship shall, on any pretence whatever, be detained, which shall be found any where near the land or on the high seas south of the equator, unless after a chase that shall have been commenced north of the equator."

This can only be intended as a protection to illicit slave trading, because legitimate slave ships could not be detained with impunity, and no one will venture, under the present stipulated indemnity, to detain any vessel, in the slightest degree doubtful; even if the Portuguese intended to assert that south of the equator, their vessels must of course be correctly commanded and manned, and their passports and ship-papers all conformable to regulation, and the number of slaves according to specification, still the article would be inexcusable, in presuming to give themselves a right to slave trade in every part of Africa, south of the equator; even their exorbitant claim does not extend to the entire of the coast, south of the equator; if it had, their defining the limits. of the coast within which they were allowed to trade, was superfluous.

Article 5. "Portuguese vessels furnished with a regular passport, having slaves on board, shipped at those parts of the coast of Africa where the trade is permitted to Portuguese subjects, and which shall afterwards be found north of the equator, shall not be detained by the ships of war of the two nations, though furnished with 'the present instructions, provided the same can account for their course, either in conformity with the practice of the Portuguese navigation, by steering some degrees to the northward, in search of fair winds, or for other legitimate causes, such as the dangers of the sea duly proved; or lastly, in the case of their passports proving that they were bound for a Portuguese port not within the continent of Africa. Provided always that with regard to all slave ships detained to the north of the equator, the proof of the legality of the voyage is to be furnished by the vessel so detained. On the other hand, with respect to slave ships detained to the south of the equator, in conformity with the

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