exaggeration and passion, rather than the sober representation of truth? Let us then examine the facts of the case calmly, aad estimate, if we can, the real nature of this melancholy provision. Let us view it even upon the most favourable supposition that can be made; namely, on the supposition that the slave trade will be abolished, at the end of five years, not only by France but by all the European Powers.

One great, perhaps the principal, object for which both the French Government and people desire the slave trade, is to repeople St. Domingo with slaves. All, however, who are acquainted with the past history or present state of that island, must be convinced that, before that object can be effected, a war of extermination must be waged with its present inhabitants. In 1802, when Bonaparte attempted to possess himself of St. Domingo, he soon discovered that there was no medium between renouncing all hope of re-establishing slavery in that island, and exterminating the people who possessed it. He chose the latter alternative, and, as may be supposed, was not very scrupu lous as to the means of effecting his purpose. The barbarities exercised in St. Domingo are not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the history even of revolutionary France. All his efforts, however, proved unavailing; and after a short, but ferocious, struggle, during which no quarter was given or received, the Blacks remained the undisputed masters of the island. The well-appointed armies, amount. ing to upwards of 50,000 men, which Bonaparte had sent thither, were in a short time so much reduced by the insalubrity of the climate, and the harassing warfare of the Blacks as to be under the necessity of retiring within the lines of Cape François, where they must have fallen victims to the rage of their assailants, had they not been rescued from the horrors of an assault, by the intervention of an English squadron.

The same dreadful warfare is now about to be renewed, and probably with similar success. But rightly to estimate the miseries which must attend it, it will be necessary to consider the actual state of St Domingo. The present rulers and proprietors of it are the Blacks and people of Colour; the former bowever, greatly outnumbering the lat ter.

These have known the rigours of West-Indian bondage; they have freed themselves from its yoke, and have now enjoyed a state of complete personal liberty for more than twenty-two years. They have had full experience of the treachery and cruelty of the French, and they have also measured their strength with that of their oppressors. The most active and inextinguishable sentiment of their minds is hatred to their former masters. It is one of their fundamental laws, a law which they guard with peculiar jealousy, that no white Frenchman, on pain of death, shall even land on their shores. Their numbers also are formidable. In 1792, the population was estimated at 630,000. Since that period, notwithstanding the troubles in which they have been involved, they are stated to have greatly increased. They are at the same time said to be well supplied with warlike stores, procured with the express view of resisting any attempt to reduce them to slavery; and they bave been taught by experience what are the most efficacious means of wasting the strength, and frustrating the efforts of their European invaders. If, therefore, they should be reduced at all, which is at least a questionable point, the conflict cannot fail to be very sanguinary; and consi-dering the light in which the combatants are regarded by each other, as merciless tyrants, or as revolted slaves, will probably be attended with circumstances of the most unrelenting barbarity. But to proceed→→

The greatest part of the population of St. Domingo is at present

find it impossible to retrace their steps and to proceed by those methods of just and liberal concession which the case demands.

And here is it not obvious, that had it not been for the permission which the treaty contains to recommence the slave trade, the inducement to attempt the restoration of slavery in St. Domingo would have been greatly diminished, if not entirely taken away? But for the extravagant expectations which the revival of that trade has excited, it probably would have been less difficult to have satisfied the French Government, as well as the people of France, that their true policy would be not to destroy the present industrious and intelligent population of St. Domingo, but to conciliate and cherish them; not to break in pieces the existing frame of society, but to diffuse more widely the arts of peace, and the blessings of civil and religious knowledge; not to restore the former horrid system, an attempt involving probably the extermination of the present race, but unequivocally to confirm the actual rights of freedom and property, and by judicious regulations to give an increased impulse to the general prosperity. Under such a system, instead of seeing this beautiful island convert ed into a charnel-house, exhibiting an unvarying scene of blood and misery and desolation, St. Domingo would probably become in a very few years a more valuable colony to France than it could be made even by the unresisted accomplishment of her present views.

But it may be argued, that if this representation of the state of French St. Domingo be correct, then, at least, that colony will furnish no mart for slaves from Africa; and that if it be also true that the French desire the slave trade chiefly with a view to re establish the plantations of that island on their former footing, there is then little ground to fear that any very extensive slave trade will be carried

on by France. If St. Domingo must first be reduced, and if this should prove a tedious and difficult, if not an impracticable work, then, before slaves can be required from Africa for its supply, the five years allotted for the continuance of the slave trade will be exhausted.

Now, although we believe that for five years to come, this trade will prove of no use to France for the purpose of recultivating St. Domingo, yet we think there is little doubt that a most extensive slave trade will, nevertheless, be carried on from that country. The hope which they, who can get first to market, will have of procuring slaves in Africa on easy terms, would probably hasten forward their equipments, even if no limitation of the trade in point of time were proposed in the treaty. But the possibility that that limitation may be carried into effect, will of itself infuse an extraordinary degree of energy into the proceedings of the slave merchants; and it cannot be doubted, that very large demands for slaves will speedily be made on Africa. And when it is found, that these slaves cannot be disposed of in French St. Domingo, it will be vain to think that the vague expressions which would confine the slave merchant to the supply of his own colonies will prevent their being transported across the boundary line which se parates French from Spanish St. Domingo; whence they may be le 'gally conveyed to Porto Rico and Cuba, and easily, if not legally, to Jamaica, New Orleans, &c.

But although St. Domingo is the colony for which the slave trade has been chiefly sought by France, yet, if that market should fail, there will not be wanting an abundant vent for slaves in other quarters. Besides the islands of Bourbon, Martinique, and Guadaloupe, France will possess the extensive colony of Cayenne, where the rage for sugar-planting, if disappointed in St. Domingo. will find full scope for its developement. French Guiana is twice as

large as French St. Domingo, is equally fertile, and still more fatal to human life. Can any one contemplate the hundreds of thousands who may be butchered in Africa, and the hundreds of thousands more who may be torn by force or fraud from that country, carried across the Atlantic in the holds of ships crowded to excess, and then doomed to the most cruel bondage, in order to convert the deserts of Cayenne into sugar plantations, and yet regard as a blessing to mankind the treaty we are considering?

But besides all this, French Guiana is separated from Dutch Guiana by a boundary line so undefined, that it was formerly necessary to appoint commissioners to ascertain and fix its position. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that whatever engagements on the subject of the slave trade Holland may enter into with this country, slaves, to any amount that may be desired, will be conveyed from French into Dutch Guiana; and Dutch capital will be employed under the French flag to fill, by this short and easy circuit, their own colonies with imported Africans.

The French Slave Trade, therefore, will find abundant scope for its exercise, even on the supposition that St. Domingo will not be reconquered, and supposing also, which is far less probable, that we should be able to shut our own colonies against importations from the adjoining colonies of France. But what hope can reasonably be entertained, that while the slave trade is legally carried on at St. Domingo, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Bourbon. &c. it will not furnish large supplies to the Isle of France and to the English Islands in the West-Indian Archipelago? There is, it is true, an expedient within the reach of Parliament, by which this evil might be prevented; we mean, the prompt establishment of a Register of Slaves in all our islands, after the model of that already established in Trinidada. By making this regiCHRIST, OBSERV. No. 150.

ster (which should, in the first place, contain the names and description of all the slaves now actually within the colony, and should afterwards receive only the additions by birth) the sole evidence of slavery, so that all not found there would become ipso facto free, a complete stop would necessarily be put to all such illegal importations. But that expedient has not been adopted: the door, therefore, is still open. We should rejoice to hear that Government had resolved even on this partial mitigation of the numerous evils flowing from the article on which we have dwelt so long.

We cannot help noticing one singular circumstance in the present treaty, which seems to indicate a strange inattention to the question: of the Slave Trade. Guadaloupe had been ceded to Sweden, under an express stipulation that Sweden should renounce the slave trade; and Sweden held Guadaloupe on this condition. We have permitted Sweden, however, to transfer Guadaloupe to France without requiring that the condition on which alone she held it should be annexed to the transfer.

We shall not detain our readers with attempting to point out the effects which the introduction of large numbers of slaves into the French colonies, while they are excluded from our own, may have on the prosperity of the latter. Our West-Indian planters have already taken the alarm on this head, and, we have been assured, are meditating an application to Parliament for the restoration of the British slave trade for five years. And certainly, if the trade were not known in Great Britain by its right name,-robbery and murder :-and if there were not a majority in Parliament and in the country, who prefer the favour of Heaven, and the claims of humanity and justice, to commercial speculations, involv ing such crimes, however gainful in prospect; we should be under some alarm for the issue of such an appli

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