settlements should not be bound, by virtue of their office, to act and appear gratuitously for the slave, in every question respecting the rights of freedom, or of property which may arise between him and any of the European inhabitants of the colonies. When it is remembered, that the evidence of slaves is, by the practice of all our islands, and by the written law of the greater part of our colonial legislatures, absolutely inadmissible in courts either of civil or criminal justice, the necessity of such an institution as we have mentioned will hardly be disputed.

We have been the more careful in specifying some of the many grounds of accusation, which we might bring forward against the general state of law'in our West Indian Islands, because we wish to direct the attention of our readers to the many evils in those colonies, which call for reformation, and to the duty of lending their aid to a society, from the exertions of which alone that reformation can be expected. If we were called upon to state from what fertile source those mischiefs had originated, we should answer, with little hesitation, from the multiplicity of distinct legislative bodies existing in those settlements. To us, the policy of this mode of ruling distant colonies, has, on general principle, always appeared perfectly indefensible. The remote provinces of a great empire, at all times hang somewhat loosely on the general body of the state. Participating less than the more central districts, in the emolu. ments and splendour of the higher civil and judicial offices, differing in their habits of life, in their local prejudices, and in their municipal regulations, there is always a tendency in the inhabitants of such provinces to attach themselves strongly to a system of provincial politics. Party spirit is never so dangerous as when its influence is exactly defined and circumscribed within certain geographical limits. But when there are regular constituted assemblies, which, as the legal organs of such communities can give an official sanction, and a technical form to the complaints of the people, a disunion from the general commonwealth will be almost the inevitable consequence of the first serious dispute, which may arise between the parent state and its dependencies. The case of the United States of America forms the obvious illustration of these opinions. Continual jarrings and collision between the rights and enactments of the colonial and the supreme legislature, is another of the evils inherent in the very nature of such institutions. Many laws will be passed with no other view than the indulgence of the passions of the petty provincial circle. The government, necessarily ignorant of the details of colonial affairs, and conscious of its ignorance, will be induced by the

misrepresentations of the fraudulent, to give its assent to many acts, which will eventually create great misrule and oppression. All these, and a long train of other evils too numerous for mention here, must, in the most favourable circumstances, result from the establishment of independent legislative bodies in the distant settlements of an extended empire.

But there are other inconveniences in this system of colonial government, peculiar to the case of the West Indian islands. Domestic slavery, even when the master is under the vigilant controul of the state, leads of necessity to innumerable hardships and abuses. No laws can be framed with provisions so exact and minute, and with sanctions so powerful, as to prevent or punish all the acts of caprice and tyranny, which, in the privacy of his domestic circle, an unfeeling master may commit against his slave. What then will be the case where the slave master is himself the legislator, and the only legislator? where all the enactments of the law, and, what is far more important, all the spirit of the law, instead of interposing a shield for the protection of the slave, supplies the master with the means of depressing him still lower in society, and of exacting from him a still larger measure of toil and labour? Our West Indian law books furnish a most satisfactory answer to such inquiries. We know that there is a cry ever ready to be raised by men who, despising and sinning daily against the substance of liberty, are most noisy and clamorous about its name. But with what share of front must not those men be gifted, who, surrounded by a population of slaves numerically exceeding themselves in the proportion of ten or fifteen to one, can still gravely insist on their own absolute indefeasible right, not only to the most ample freedom, but to the most unrestricted independence. We trust the society, in some of its frequent communications with government, will induce our rulers to watch with a very strict eye over all the laws, which may hereafter be presented to them, for their sanction, by these colonial lawgivers.

We must apologize to our readers for this long digression from the more immediate subject of this article. A future opportunity, we trust, will enable us to atone for our present deficiencies.

The present Report, like its predecessors, tells its tale so shortly, that abridgement, we fear, is hardly practicable. We have already mentioned, and we grieve to repeat the dreadful fact, that no less than from 70 to 80,000 Africans, were, during the year 1810, transported as slaves from the western coast of Africa to the opposite shores of the Atlantic. This enormous traffic was principally confined to that part of Africa which lies between Cape Palmas and Benguela.' (Report, p. 1.) The

possession by Portugal of the Island of Biissao, has afforded an opportunity for continuing the Slave Trade from that settlement. But for the intervention of this spot, our cruizers might, in the opinion of the lamented Captain Columbine, have extinguished this trade at every part of the African coast north of the equator. Earnest and repeated applications have been made to his Majesty's government, on the necessity of obtaining from the court of the Brazils the cession of this island. Nothing, however, has yet been effected, we fear, on this subject. Certain ambiguities in the 10th article of the Treaty of Amity between this country and the Court of the Brazils, have occasioned much difficulty to the commanders of our cruizers on the African coast, as to the law of prize, so far as it depends on the interpretation of that instrument. Several cases have arisen, on the construction of this act, which are fully detailed in the Appendix to this Report. The result of these cases is thus stated.

The general result seems to be, that, of the existing slave trade, a considerable share may be regarded as a bonâ fide Portuguese trade: car ried on, however, for the most part, as the directors apprehend, in contravention of the treaty already referred to. But a still greater proportion, the directors are well assured, is either a British or an American trade, conducted under the flags of Spain and Portugal. In some cases, where the disguise was so complete as to leave hardly any room, in the first instance, to question the truth of the allegation, that the property was Spanish or Portuguese, discoveries have been accidentally made in the course of investigation, which have established, beyond all doubt, the British or American ownership. A very small part, if any, of the existing slave trade can be considered as really Spanish.' p. 8.

The operation of the Slave Trade Felony Act has not yet been felt on the African Coast. It will, we have little doubt, act as a complete discouragement to the employment of British capital in that traffic. The cases of American subjects trading under Spanish and Portugese flags have been numerous. When we were yet at peace with the United States, (it is melancholy to remember that we are not still so), the names of the parties concerned were transmitted to the American Secretary of State, in the hope that a criminal pro-, secution might be supported against the offending parties. Much pains have been taken by the Institution to disseminate through the navy, information on the subject of the Slave Trade, as connected with the law of prize.

The principal information immediately connected with the West Indies, which will be found in this Report, consists of details of the cases of Hodge, who was executed at Tortola, for the murder of a slave, and of Huggins, who, in Nevis, was not executed for the inhuman torture of his slaves, male and

female, in the public market place of that island. These dreadful narratives have been brought before the public in so many shapes, that few of our readers can be ignorant of them. Amidst these nefarious scenes, it is refreshing to meet with such an instance of humane and generous conduct as the following.

About fourteen years ago, Daniel Hill, Esq. of Antigua, purchased from a slave ship a negro slave of the name of Mohammed. Discovering him to have been above the common class in his own country, and to have acquired a considerable share of Arabic literature, he was led to treat him with particular indulgence. Mohammed manifested a strong attachment to the Mahommedan religion, and his master paid the utmost attention to the religious scruples of his slave. At length Mr. Hill resolved to grant him his liberty, and to procure for him the means of returning to his own country. Mohammed arrived at Liverpool, in the month of June last, recommended to the care of Mr. Shand of that place, under whose roof he remained during a stay of two or three months in England. An application having been made on behalf of this stranger to the Directors, they were induced to be at the expense of conveying him to Goree, which was the nearest point to the residence of his family; and they furnished him with letters to Major Chisholm, the governor of that place, and a member of this Institution, on whose good offices in Mohammed's favour they confidently rely.' pp. 14-15.

There are also some interresting communications in this paper from the Hon. W. Wylly, the Attorney General of the Bahama Islands, and Hugh Percy Keane, Esq. of St. Vincent, both of them men to whom this rare commendation can with truth be given, that long intercourse with the selfish and unfeeling part of mankind, has only contributed to heighten their sensibility to human suffering, and to invigorate their zeal to relieve it.

The remainder of this report consists of a statement of what has been done by the Institution, more directly for the improvement of the African continent-of the voyage made by the commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the various forts and settlements on the coast-and of various journals of the latest travellers into the interior.

With respect to the efforts of the Society for the direct improvement of the African continent, we confess we are not very sanguine in expecting much benefit to result from them. Human wisdom is able to effect very little by positive_regulation, in advancing the happiness of human society. But in the prevention of evil, and in repairing those errors into which he has been led by his folly or his wickedness, man has large scope for the useful exercise of all his reasoning faculties, and all his active powers. The cautious application, for instance, of legal science, during the last three centuries,

has been slowly emancipating us from the barbarous system of the feudal institutions. With much bloodshed, and through many revolutions, our ancestors struggled to deliver themselves from the dangerous authority, with which the weakness or ignorance of former ages, had invested the sovereign power in this country in resisting the incredible superstitons of popery, many of the most holy men, whom our history mentions, sacrificed their lives: but still our legislators, our patriots, and our martyrs, great and venerable as they were, claim our admiration rather as having resisted the prejudices of preceding ages, and the absurdities of ancient institutions, than as men who opened original sources of public happiness, and who struck out new and unheard of means of social improvement. Thinking thus of what it is in the power of man to do, in ameliorating the political condition of his fellows, we have always been used to look with much interest at the efforts made by this Institution for the extinction of the remains of the Slave Trade, and with comparative despondency at their plans for the civilization of Africa. Some of our readers may think otherwise on this point: they will be curious to read the following extracts containing the latest accounts of the present state of Africa. They are taken from " an account of a tribe of people called Kroomen, inhabiting a small district of the Grain Coast of Africa, between Cape Mount and Cape Palmas, by the late Mr. Ludlam."

The submission of Kroomen to their superiors is carried so far, that when one of these commits a theft, for instance, the rest will run every hazard arising from judicial perjury, and resist every temptation of reward, rather than reveal it; and if there be no other mode of saving their superior from disgrace and punishment, they will take the crime on themselves and suffer its penalty. Many facts of this kind occurred at Sierra Leone. Among themselves, theft is punished by whipping. The punishment of adultery is by fine. Murder may be punished with death, but it may also be always atoned for by a pecuniary fine. Witchcraft is always punished capitally, but I know only one instance of it. Among Kroomen no offence is punished with slavery; nor is any Krooman permitted to be sold on any account whatsoever. While the Slave Trade lasted, they were notoriously in the habit of kidnapping and selling the "Bushmen" who came down to the coast for the purposes of trade: whom also, in their capacity of factors, they were in the regular practice of defrauding to a considerable amount. pp. 91–92.

" Every thing I have observed in the Kroomen tends to convince me that they are very sensible to honour and dishonour; yet I almost doubt whether they have any notion of crimes, distinct from the notion of inju ries. Theft is certainly not discreditable among them: their principal people are more than suspected of making their inferiors practise it, and