England and America, and the impulse of popular feeling and opinion in both countries has become great and irresistible. Similar views are beginning to pervade all Europe; men have begun to reason and to feel upon this subject, and the ultimate victory of humanity is therefore secured. In a few years, the African slave-trade and Cannibalism will stand upon equal pedestals in the exhibition of human depravity.

As this subject is becoming daily of greater domestic and political interest, the following sketch of its history and present situation, may be acceptable to those of our readers who have not time or opportunity for further inquiry. Previous to the discoveries of the coast of Africa by the Portugueze, in the early part of the fifteenth century, the slavery had ceased throughout Europe. But among the first advantages derived from their acquisitions on the African coast, was the revival of this traffic. Thus the most degraded nation of modern Europe is entitled to the disgraceful pre-eminence of having introduced this atrocious commerce;-and with admirable consistency, she persists in her ignominy, by remaining the only European maritime power, that has not acceded to its abolition.

The first permanent colony settled in America was established by Columbus on the Island of Hispaniola, now more commonly called St. Domingo, in the year 1493; the small one, left by him in consequence of his shipwreck in the preceding year, having been justly destroyed by the natives. And the first slaves in the new world were the captives, taken by the Spaniards in a war commenced by the inhabitants to protect themselves from the rapacity of the colonists. Soon afterwards. taxes to be paid in gold and cotton, were exacted from the unhappy Indians; but as these in a short time exceeded their means of acquisition, they were compelled, in lieu of them, to cultivate certain portions of their native land for the use of these merciless strangers. From this institution eventually proceeded the Repartimientos, or distributions among the colonists of the natives as slaves, by which they were reduced to the most abject and laborious servitude, which soon extinguished the whole race. When the island was first discovered, the number of inhabitants was computed at the lowest estimation to be a million. In fifteen years afterwards there remained only sixty thousand; and notwithstanding the importation of forty thousand of the simple inhabitants of the Lucayos Islands, who were decoyed to Hispaniola under the assurance that it was the paradise of their departed ancestors, who were awaiting their arrival, in a little more than twentyfive years from the discovery of the island, the Indians had be

come extinct.

The exterminating cruelties inflicted upon this inoffensive race excited, as might have been expected, the pity and indig nation of those in whose hearts avarice had not extinguished all sense of justice and all feelings of humanity. The Dominican priests, who had been sent over as instructers and missionaries to the Spanish colonies, and who found all efforts to teach or civilize the natives utterly hopeless while they were suffering under this oppression, zealously opposed a system so repugnant to every principle of justice and religion. But their attempts to procure an amelioration of the condition of the wretched natives were as unavailing as unceasing. The mines could not be worked nor the plantations cultivated without slaves, and the abrogation of the system was therefore determined to be impracticable. At length the celebrated Las Casas, the principal of the Dominicans and great champion of the Indians, who had long exerted himself with zeal and abilities worthy the cause he had espoused, finding all other expedients hopeless, proposed the substitution of African slaves to be purchased of the Portuguese. Although this proposition was zealously opposed, on the obvious principle, that it was iniquitous to reduce one race of men to slavery for the sake of relieving another; it was finally adopted in the year 1517, and African slaves were soon afterwards imported into Hispaniola. Thus by one of the most notorious of the inconsistences which mark the history of enthusiasm even in the noblest and holiest of causes, was this curse first imposed upon America. The shores of Hispaniola were the first American soil polluted by the footsteps of an African slave, and they were the first to witness his self emancipation; the land which first drank his tears, was the first drenched in the blood of his oppressors; and the mountains which first re-echoed the sound of the lacerating scourge, were the first which reverberated the signal of his triumph. He is now the lord of the soil he ignobly tilled for others, and waves the banner of freedom over the scenes of his former ignominy and suffering. The voice of God speaks loudly in this event,-let the nations look to it.

The natives of Africa being of a more hardy nature than the Indians, the trade in slaves to the American colonies soon be came extremely lucrative, and was undertaken by all the maritime nations of Europe. In a very few years the number exported varied from fifty to an hundred thousand, and in 1791 the British importations alone amounted to 74,000.

The means taken to procure them, and their subsequent treatment, exceed in atrocity all previous conceptions of cruelty, and would have seemed the frenzied imaginations of a maniac slave,

were they not too truly matters of history. Not only were all possible deceptions practised to decoy them on board the slave ships, or within the power of those who were employed to take them, and to surprise any who might have wandered from their hamlets, and not only were tribes excited to war with each other in order to procure captives; but at night whole villages being surrounded and set on fire, an indiscriminate capture was made of men, women and children as they were escaping from the flames, who were instantly hurried on board the vessel awaiting to receive them. But who will attempt to describe their sufferings there :-chained two and two by their hands and feet and thus fastened to the deck, with only five feet and six inches in length and sixteen in breadth, whatever might be their size, and with from four to five feet only in height between the platforms: kept weeks and months in this condition under a vertical sun-the imagination can fix no bounds to their misery. Many died of suffocation, and more of the diseases generated by the noxious atmosphere created from the heat and filth to which they were exposed, so that when inspected in the morning the living and the dead were often found chained together. So great was the mortality produced by their sufferings, that one third of those received on board the vessels died before their arrival at their ports of destination.-Well has this trade been denominated "one long continuous crime, involving every possible combination of evil, combining the wildest physical suffering with the most atrocious moral depravity."

A moment's reflection upon the agony of the wretched captives terminating only with their lives, upon the misery of those from whom they are thus for ever hopelessly sundered, and of the cold-blooded, atrocious barbarity of those engaged in this traffic, must excite in every heart, not utterly dead to feeling, emotions of which it would be but mockery of language to attempt an expression. The first efforts to abolish this traffic were made in this country. Slavery never existed to any great extent in New England; the principles and habits of her citizens were all calculated to inspire them with a hatred of its existence, and detestation of the traffic. Of the enormities of the trade, indeed, most of them were utterly ignorant; and the state of servitude among them was of a nature so mild, and differing so little from that of common labourers, that it was not calculated to excite much feeling, excepting such as arose from a sense of its injustice. This feeling their history evinces to have been powerful and operative. The citizens of the southern states also were early enlisted in opposition to the traffic, both from feelings of compassion excited by the miseries it inflicted,

and the danger to which they might be exposed from its continuance and increase.

As early as the year 1641, attempts were made by the General Court of Massachusetts to put an end to this iniquitous trade; and from that time until the Revolution similar efforts were repeatedly made by this and the other New England colonies, and also by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia; all which were frustrated by the British Government, who refused to ratify any acts passed to check a commerce so lucrative to the mother country. That, however, which could not be done by legislative interference, would ultimately have been effected in this province by the sentiments of the people, operating through the medium of their Courts of Judicature, whose decisions bear equal testimony to the humanity and sense of justice characteristic of our forefathers, and the imbecility of all laws or institutions dissonant to the feelings and principles of the people among whom they exist.*

Soon after the provinces above mentioned became free and independent sovereignties, they respectively enacted laws interdicting the slave trade under the severest penalties. And in 1794, the congress of the United States prohibited it from being carried on froin American ports, either by citizens or foreigners resident in them. Several additional laws were afterwards enacted; and finally, in the year 1807, the importation of slaves into the United States was totally prohibited after the first day of January in the year 1808. The infraction of this law subjected the vessel to condemnation, and the persons engaged to heavy penalties and imprisonment. Various other laws have been made in reference to this subject; and finally, on the 15th day of May, 1820, it was enacted, that if any citizen of the United States, being of the crew or ship's company of any foreign vessel engaged in the slave-trade, or any person whatever being of the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned in the whole or in part, or navigated for or in behalf of any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall land from any such ship or vessel, and on any foreign shore seize, any negro or mulatto, not held to service or hard labour by the laws of either of the states or territories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall decoy or forcibly bring or

* In 1770, negroes began to sue their masters for their freedom and for payment of all services rendered after the age of twenty-one. Many ac tions for that purpose were brought between this time and the Revolution, all of which were successful.

See Report to the House of Representatives of this Commonwealth, Jan. 16, 1822., which gives an interesting history of slavery in this state.

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carry, or shall receive such negro or mulatto on board any such ship or vessel with intent as aforesaid, such citizen or person shall be adjudged a pirate, and on conviction shall suffer death.

Thus have the United States led the way in terminating this horrible traffic, and affixing upon it the deepest brand of infamy by abandoning all her citizens who may be engaged in it, as pirates, enemies of the human race, whom it is lawful for any nation to capture and put to death.

In England, while those of her subjects who were engaged in the trade, plied it with the most busy activity and relentless cruelty, the great majority for a long time had but a general knowledge of its existence, and saw its effects only in the increase of the commercial enterprize and wealth of their country. The atrocities attending it had not reached their ears, and the miseries inflicted upon the wretched Africans in the British West India Islands, were at a distance too remote to attract attention, or excite much sympathy in the bosoms of men, whose feelings were absorbed in their domestic and national concerns.

At length, in the year 1787, an attempt, originating among the Quakers, was made in the British Parliament to procure an amelioration of the trade with a view to its ultimate abolition; but although moved by Wilberforce, and supported by Fox, and Pitt then at the height of his power, it failed utterly. Subsequent efforts were made with gradual success, and, finally, after a struggle of twenty years, which called forth all the talent and eloquence of the nation, a vote was obtained on the 25th day of March, 1807, by which a total prohibition, to take effect after the first day of March, 1808, was ordained. A subsequent act of parliament has since rendered the trade by British subjects, or in British vessels, felony. In the year 1792, Denmark prohibited it to her subjects after the year 1803, and has faithfully enforced the law. Sweden abolished it in the year 1813. In 1814 Spain engaged by treaty with England to prohibit her subjects from supplying with slaves any islands or possessions not belonging to her, and to prevent the Spanish flag from protecting foreigners engaged in the traffic. And in 1817 she further engaged thenceforth not to carry on the slave trade north of the equator, and that it should be abolished throughout the Spanish dominions on the 30th day of May 1820. In the same year the king of the Netherlands also agreed to abolish it, but it was not until the year 1818, that he adopted any effectual measures for that purpose. Buonaparte, on bis return from Elba in 1814, interdicted the slave-trade; and Louis, on his return in July 1815, confirmed the decree, and declared the traffic to be thence