the nature of things, to the physical organization and the moral improvement of inan, would be a blessing of such transcendent magnitude, that, if there existed upon earth a combination of power and will, adequate to accomplish the result by the energy of a single act, the being who should exercise it would be among the greatest benefactors of the human race. But this stage of human perfectibility is yet far remote. The glory of the first attempt belongs to France. France first surveyed the subject of weights and measures in all its extent and all its compass.-France first beheld it as involving the interests, the comforts, and the morals of all nations and of all after ages. In forming her system, she acted as the representative of the whole human race, present and to come. She has established it by law within her own territories; and she has offered it as a benefaction to the acceptance of all other nations.-That it is worthy of their acceptance, is believed to be beyond a question. But opinion is the queen of the world; and the final prevalence of this system beyond the boundaries of France's power must await the time, when the example of its benefits, long and practically enjoyed, shall acquire that ascendency over the opinions of other nations, which gives motion to the springs and direction to the wheels of power."

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CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE SLAVE TRADE.

THERE is another important subject, which would properly come before an international Congress, that of the Slave Trade. If there is any discussion, in which the whole human race could properly be concerned, it is in relation to this insufferable traffic. Nothing can be more humiliating to human nature, or more offensive in the sight of a just God than the fact, that multitudes of our fellow beings are, from year to year, causelessly and violently torn away from their homes and friends, and consigned to hopeless servitude in foreign lands. In order to have a correct view of the abominations of the Slave Trade, every man should apply the facts to himself and to his own case. Our views and feelings are apt to be limited by the narrow circle of our own personal interests; and the most aggravated evils, when they do not have a direct connection with ourselves but are remote from us, appear exceedingly diminished and almost harmless. But let us ask, what sum of money would compensate for the laceration of feeling and the unspeakable wretchedness of that parent among ourselves, who should behold his beloved children seized and carried off by a band of robbers. Look round upon your own family, and put the question to your own heart; and then

say, whether the cruel treatment of African fathers and African children is a trifling concern.

Many years since the miseries of Africa, connected with the slave trade and resulting from it, arrested the attention of philanthropists in various parts of the world. A number of excellent men, respected alike for their talents and their high moral character, long ago raised their voice against this tremendous evil, this concentrated essence of sin and wretchedness. The generous and enlightened men who have been referred to, are not to be blamed, if the results have not corresponded to their wishes. It is true, that the traffic has been prohibited by the Legislatures of England, France, and the United States; and various treaties have been formed with the same general object in view. But it has been found to avail almost absolutely nothing, that some nations have taken these just measures, and have even denounced the traffic as piracy, while others have continued to prosecute it. Instead of being entirely suppressed, as it ought to have been years ago, this odious and cruel trade is still openly carried on, and is not even essentially diminished. Even to this day the peaceful villages of Africa are devastated; husbands and wives, parents and children, with a love towards each other as warm and pure as thrills in the breast of any European, are separated from each other's arms forever. In the year 1822 there were shipped from Africa for the single city of Rio Janeiro 31,240 negroes; and for the city of Bahia more than 8000, swelling the Brazilian trade alone to the heart sickening aggregate of about 40,000 persons, cruelly and treacherously torn from their homes and families, and doomed to a life of toilsome and hopeless servitude. In 1823 the number of persons, thus introduced into the Brazilian ports, was nearly the same; certainly not less. In the first six months of the year 1824, the number of

slaves brought into the port of Rio Janeiro was 16,563.* By a recent official report from the same city, it appears, that the number of slaves imported into it in 1826 was 35,966, and that the number imported in 1827 was 41,384. According to a statement in the recent travels of Dr. Walsh in Brazil, the number imported in 1828 was 45,000.-Slave factories were not long since established in the immediate vicinity of the American colony of Liberia; and at the Gallinas (between Liberia and Sierra Leone) not less than 900 slaves were shipped in the summer of 1830 in the short space of three weeks. It appears from the statements of the Colonial Agent of Liberia, that, in the year 1834, the coast of Western Africa was swarming with slave traders. In December of that year a Spanish brig of three hundred tons, the Formidable, was captured off the mouth of the old Calabar river, which had on board seven hundred slaves. It is not easy to state with perfect precision, but the average number of enslaved Africans, violently torn away each year from their native country, may be estimated with much probability at not less than 75,000. Many persons, who have been favorably situated to form a correct estimate, have placed the number as high as an 100,000.

But the dreadful atrocity of these transactions is not to be found in the number of enslaved persons alone; it is not less conspicuous in the treatment of them; in their want of clothing, in the wretched quality of their bread, in the putrid water they are compelled to drink, and the close and corrupted air they breathe. It shocks humanity to add, that the wretched slaves have, in a number of instances, been thrown overboard alive, as if they were mere ballast, and not our brethren, bone of our bone and

* See statements in the Edinburg Review, Vol. XLI,

† African Repository, Aug. 1828, April and July 1835.- See also the 13th Annual Rep. of the Am. Colon. Society.

flesh of our flesh. In 1819 the French slave ship, the Rodeur, threw overboard thirty nine negroes, who had become blind during the voyage, and were for that reason unsaleable. Not long since, as appears from a report of the African Institution, the slave ship La Perle, having landed part of a cargo of 250 slaves at Guadaloupe, was pursued by an armed French Cutter; and to avoid detection threw the remainder, sixty-five, overboard, and they were all drowned. So recently as the latter part of the year 1831, if we may credit uncontradicted accounts circulated generally in the newspapers, the same dreadful crime was repeated to a still greater extent. The two tenders of the English frigate Dryad gave chase to two slave vessels apparently deeply laden; but the slavers, exerting themselves to the utmost, were enabled to escape into the river Bonny, and to disembark 600 slaves, before the tenders could come up to take possession of them. They found on board only two hundred, but ascertained that the persons in command of the slave vessels had thrown overboard 180 unfortunate victims, manacled together, four only of whom were picked up. What man can read such accounts, which are susceptible of being authenticated beyond all manner of doubt, without hiding his head in shame and confusion, and even blushing to think himself a man! What king, what legislator can be found, who will not raise his voice against this horrid wickedness, till it shall reach all lands, all nations! And yet this traffic, with all its dreadful attendants, has already measured a pilgrimage of more than three hundred years; it has already consigned to slavery and all the horrors of slavery forty millions of persons; and still lives and flourishes.

It cannot be doubted, that the arrangements, incident to the practice of the slave trade, would be suitable topics for the discussions of an International Congress, and