capital, and so continued until the acts for mitigating the rigour of the criminal law in 1837, made Slave-trading punishable with transportation for life. There is every reason to think that no British subjects are now or have for many years been directly engaged in this execrable traffic, with the exception of those belonging to the Mauritius. In that island it is certain, that with the connivance, if not under the direct encouragement of the higher authorities of the colony, Slave-trading to an enormous extent, was for some years openly carried on. A Colonial Secretary of State admitted that above 25,000 Negroes had been brought over from the African Coast, in other words, 25,000 capital felonies committed under the eye, if not with the encouragement, of the government. It is an unenviable reflection which is left to us, that for all those human beings, illegally held in bondage, and in not one of whom could there by law be any kind of property claimed, full compensation, at the rate of £53 each, has been allowed by the Commissioners, and paid by the people of this country and that besides this sum of at least a million and a half being so squandered upon the vile and sordid wrongdoers, those felons and accomplices of felons are still suffered to claim the labour of the Africans, under the name of Indentured Apprentices. With the flagrant exception of the Mauritius, there is no reason to believe that any British subjects have since the Felony act of 1811 came into operation, been directly concerned in the traffic; but there is too much reason to suspect that British capital has pretty freely found its way into that corrupt channel.

SPEECH.

SIR,-I rise, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the House to the state of the Slave Trade, a subject of the first importance; and, although it is neither a personal question, nor a party one; although its discussion involves neither the pursuit nor the defence of place; although, indeed, it touches matters of no higher concernment than the honour of the House and the country, and the interests of humanity at large; I trust that it will, nevertheless, receive the same favourable consideration which it has so often experienced upon former occasions. The question I purpose to submit to the House is, Whether any, and what measures can be adopted, in order to watch over the execution of the sentence of condemnation which Parliament has, with a singular unanimity, pronounced upon the African Slave Trade? It is now four years since Mr. Fox made his last motion in this House, and, I believe, his last speech here, in favour of the Abolition. He then proposed a Resolution, pledging the House to the Abolition of the traffic, and moved an Address to the crown, beseeching his Majesty to use all his endeavours for obtaining the concurrence of other powers in the pursuit of this great object. An Address to the same effect was voted by the other House,