the law of nations, for the bodies of human beings forcibly and fraudulently obtained, or at all events carried away from their homes against their will, and by violence confined, and compelled to labour and suffer? What I am anxious to see is, how such a claim can be stated with common decency in such courts: I have no great fears as to the reception it would meet with: it is repugnant to the whole law of nature, and any knowledge of the law of nations which I possess affords me no authority for it. I earnestly hope some persons connected with privateers and cruisers may soon try the question. They could

It

nations) by America, but by our own laws it was still allowed. appeared to us, therefore, difficult to consider the prohibitory law of America in any other light than as one of those municipal regulations of a foreign state, of which this court could not take any cognizance. But by the alteration which has since taken place the question stands on different grounds, and is open to the application of very different principles. The Slave Trade has since been totally abolished in this country, and our legislature has pronounced it to be contrary to the principles of justice and humanity. Whatever we might think as individuals before, we could not, sitting as judges in a British court of justice, regard the trade in that light, while our own laws permitted it. But we can now assert, that this trade cannot, abstractedly speaking, have a legitimate existence. When I say abstractedly speaking, I mean this country has no right to control any foreign legislature that may think fit to dissent from this doctrine, and to permit to its own subjects the prosecution of this trade; but we have now a right, to affirm, that prima facie the trade is illegal, and thus to throw on claimants the burden of proof that in respect of them, by the authority of their own laws, it is otherwise. As the case now stands, we think we are entitled to say, that a claimant can have no right, upon principles of universal law, to claim the restitution in a prize court, of human beings carried as his slaves. He must show some right that has been violated by the capture, some property of which he has been dispossessed, and to which he ought to be restored. In this case, the laws of the claimant's country allow of no right of property of such as he claims. There can therefore be no right to restitution. consequence is, that the judgment must be affirmed."

The

run no risk, I venture to assert on my own authority, and still more confidently on that of professional friends who frequent the prize courts, that no risk whatever of being condemned in costs could possibly be incurred, even if the vessels were restored. With

out running any risk, much good may thus be done; and I should feel satisfied that I have more than announced the ends I had in view when I began this discussion, if I could persuade myself that what I now say may lead any one to make this important trial.

Having hitherto only spoken of the foreign Slave Trade, it is with great mortification that I now feel myself obliged to call the attention of the House to the evasions of the Abolition Acts in this country. For accomplishing this detestable purpose, all the various expedients have been adopted which the perverse ingenuity of unprincipled avarice can suggest. Vessels are fitted out at Liverpool, as if for innocent commerce with Africa. The ships, and even the cargoes, are, for the most part, the same as those used in the trade of gold-dust, grains, and ivory. The goods peculiarly used in the Slave Trade are carefully concealed, so as to elude the reach of the port officers. The platforms and bulk-heads which distinguish slave ships are not fitted and fixed until the vessel gets to sea, and clears the channel, when the carpenters set to work and adapt her for the reception of slaves. For better concealment, some of the sailors, and not unfrequently the Master himself, are Portuguese. But it is remarkable, that, lurking in some dark corner of the ship, is almost always to be found a hoary slave trader—an experienced captain, who, having been trained up in the slave business from his early years, now accompanies the vessel as a kind of supercargo, and helps her, by his wiles, both to escape detection and to push her iniquitous adventures. This is not a fanciful description.

I hold in my hand the record of a court of justice, which throws so much light on the subject, that I moved, on a former night, to have it laid on the table. It appears from thence, that, but a few months ago, in the very river which washes the walls of this house, not two miles from the spot where we now sit, persons daring to call themselves English merchants have been detected in the act of fitting out a vessel of great bulk for the purpose of tearing seven or eight hundred wretched beings from Africa, and carrying them through the unspeakable horrors of the middle passage to endless bondage and misery, and toil which knows no limits, nor is broken by any rest, in the sands and swamps of Brazil. This detection has been made by the zeal and knowledge of a much loved and respected friend of mine,* who was only enabled to pursue so difficult an investigation by that perfect acquaintance with the subject, which he has acquired by his residence in Africa as governor of Sierra Leone, and by having even submitted to the pain of a slave voyage for the purpose of better learning the nature of the traffic.

I shall here read several extracts from the record of condemnation of the Comercio de Rio, in the Court of Exchequer last Hilary term. It appears, that besides an enormous stock of provisions, watercasks, mess-kits, &c. there were found on board fiftyfive dozen of padlocks, ninety-three pair of hand-cuffs, a hundred and ninety-seven iron shackles for the feet, thirteen hundred-weight three quarters of iron chains, one box of religious implements, and, that the bodily as well as the spiritual health of this human cargo might not be neglected, the slave merchants, out of their rare humanity-which one must really have

Mr. Z. Macaulay.

known a good deal of the sort of character, easily to believe allowed, for the medical wants of eight hundred negroes, of all ages, crammed into a loathsome cage, and carried through new and perilous climates during a voyage of weeks, or even months-one little medicine chest, value £5. This is not the only instance of the kind, nor even the latest one, I grieve to say, recent though it be. I mentioned on a former night, that at one port of this country, six vessels have only just been fitted out, by a similar course of base fraud, for the same trade, or rather let me call it, the same series of detestable crimes.

It is now three years since that abominable traffic has ceased to be sanctioned by the law of the land; and, I thank God, I may therefore now indulge in expressing feelings towards it, which delicacy rather to the law than the traffic, might, before that period, have rendered it proper to suppress. After a long and most unaccountable silence of the law on, this head, which seemed to protect, by permitting, or at least by not prohibiting the traffic, it has now spoken out, and the veil which it has appeared to interpose being now withdrawn, it is fit to let our indignation fall on those who still dare to trade in human flesh,-not merely for the frauds of common smugglers, but for engaging in crimes of the deepest dye; in crimes always most iniquitous, even when not illegal; but which now are as contrary to law as they have ever been to honesty and justice. I must protest loudly against the abuse of language, which allows such men to call themselves traders or merchants. It is not commerce, but crime, that they are driving. I too well know, and too highly respect, that most honourable and useful pursuit, that commerce whose province it is to humanize and pacify the world—so alien in its nature to violence and fraud-so formed to flourish in peace and in

Revenge may have honourable in them

honesty so inseparably connected with freedom, and good will, and fair dealing,—I deem too highly of it to endure that its name should, by a strange perversion, be prostituted to the use of men who live by treachery, rapine, torture, and murder, and are habitually practising the worst of crimes for the basest of purposes. When I say murder, I speak literally and advisedly. I mean to use no figurative phrase; and I know I am guilty of no exaggeration. I am speaking of the worst form of that crime. For ordinary murders there may even be some excuse. arisen from the excess of feelings selves. A murder of hatred, or cruelty, or mere bloodthirstiness, can only be imputed to a deprivation of reason. But here we have to do with cool, deliberate, mercenary murder, nay, worse than this; for the ruffians who go on the highway, or the pirates who infest the seas, at least expose their persons, and, by their courage, throw a kind of false glare over their crimes. But these wretches dare not do this. They employ others as base as themselves, only that they are less cowardly; they set on men to rob and kill, in whose spoils they are willing to share, though not in their dangers. Traders, or merchants, do they presume to call themselves! and in cities like London and Liverpool, the very creations of honest trade? I will give them the right name, at length, and call them cowardly suborners of piracy and mercenary murder! Seeing this determination, on the part of these infamous persons, to elude the Abolition Act, it is natural for me to ask, before I conclude, whether any means can be devised for its more effectual execution. I would suggest the propriety of obtaining from the Portuguese government, either in perpetuity, or for a term of years, the island of Bissao, situated on the African coast, and the only foreign settlement in