NINE years ago religious society in England was startled to find that an energetic attempt was being made in South America to extend the system of slavery. Seven vessels, fitted with all the appliances of the slave-ships of former days, commanded by Spanish officers, and manned by mixed crews, had started from Callao, had visited numerous islands of the South Pacific, and had carried away hundreds of their simple inhabitants to work in the Peruvian mines. These vessels were fitted out by a well-known firm in Lima; and they had done their work with such success that before the humane Governments

* 1. Further Correspondence relating to the importation of South Sea Islanders into Queensland; in continuation of House of Commons Papers, Nos. 391 and 496, of 1868; and No. 408 of 1869; No. 468, House of Commons, August 17, 1871.

2. Kidnapping in the South Seas. Narrative of a Three Months' Cruise in Her Majesty's ship Rosario. By Captain George Palmer, R. N. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1871. NEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 1.

of the world could interfere, they had secured more than 2000 persons, and disposed of them among the planters of Chili and Peru. The atrocious speculation, however, proved a failure. Loss and damage were suffered on every side. So crowded were many of the vessels that the captives died on the voyage. Even in Peru the mortality was excessive. The islanders, who had been born and trained amid the warm sea breezes of the Pacific, ill-fed and ill-clad, could not bear the cold night winds which sweep down from the Cordilleras; and dysentery and fever car

3. The Polynesian Labor Traffic and the Murder of Bishop Patteson. Proceedings of a meeting in London, Dec. 13, 1871. William Tweedie, Strand. 1872.

4. The Slave Trade in the New-Hebrides. Papers read at the Annual Meeting of the NewHebrides Mission, held at the Island of Aniwa, July, 1871. Edited by the Rev. John Kay, Coatbridge. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1872.

5. In Quest of Coolies. By James L. A.. Hope. Henry S. King and Co.

I

ried them off in large numbers. And when the indignation of the humane, and the official remonstrances of the French and English Governments, compelled the Peruvians to surrender their plunder, not forty per cent of whose who had lost their liberty were returned to their former homes.

Again has that indignation been aroused by a new effort to perpetuate these cruelties. But this time the transgressors are Englishmen; the kidnapping vessels are owned and manned by Englishmen; the lands to which the captives are carried are settled by Englishmen; and it is entirely for English profit that the system has been defended and carried on. Happily, therefore, the reproach falls upon the whole empire; and the cure of the evil lies in English hands.

It was in the beginning of 1863 that Captain Towns, a settler in Queensland, who owned an estate of 4000 acres, in the neighborhood of Brisbane, and who had employed South Sea Islanders on his little coasting vessels, conceived the plan of procuring natives from the islands as laborers for this estate. He accordingly dispatched a vessel to seek for them. The effort was made openly; the vessel was properly fitted, fair wages were promised, and a circular letter was addressed to such missionaries as the vessel might fall in with, asking their kind coöperation, and engaging to give fair treatment to the people who might come. The vicious element also entered into the system from the first. A man named Ross Lewin, who had lived in various places in the South Seas for twenty years, and whose name is now identified with the worst scandals of the traffic and is execrated throughout the islands, was sent in the vessel as second mate and supercargo; ́and he was instructed to "get seventy, if you can;" but " even fifty will be worth while." No wonder that with such elastic instructions Ross Lewin obtained sixtyfive laborers, and became superintendent on the estate. The islanders were, doubtless, nearly all volunteers; they were humanely treated; they were engaged for two or three years; and at the termination of their service were duly paid, and were assisted to return home.

The example spread. Another house, and then another, sent for laborers. A competition sprang up, and by October,

1867, 984 laborers had been procured, of whom 400 were working at the northern ports, chiefly Bowen; and of whom no less than 225 had been brought in the previous August by a single vessel, the King Oscar. They were no longer procured for a particular house, which fitted the vessel, and took entire control. Masters of vessels went out at their own risk; they found it to their interest to go where they liked, and to manage as best they could. On their return the planters gladly divided the living freight; and the price paid, called " passage-money," was about £10

10 sterling. A few sharp-sighted men in Fiji heard of the plan, and speedily adopted it. And thus a system, at first well-intentioned and humane, was set going, under which rough English sailors, under mates and masters perhaps rougher still, found it a source of gain to fetch and carry, without inspection and without control, the simple and uncivilized natives of the Polynesian groups, and dispose of them to the men who would pay highest for the trouble involved in procuring them.

From the first the Lords of the Admiralty disliked the system. The naval officers on the Australian station knew only too well the character and proceedings of the English sailors who traded about the colonial ports and the accessible stations of the South Seas. The Colonial Office felt doubtful, and suggested to the Queensland Government that it should interfere; and at length, on March 4, 1868, that Government passed a Labor Act, and placed the employment of the islanders, if not their importation, under some measure of control.

The colony of Queensland, unlike New South-Wales, Victoria, or New-Zealand, has one special reason for desiring an immigration of the dark races rather than of whites. A large portion of the colony runs up far into the tropics, whence that district has received the name of Capricornia. Though the air is fresh and bracing, and the land is canopied by a sky of brilliant blue, the climate is hot, the soil is rocky, thin, and poor; the sun is powerful, and it is impossible for the harder processes of agriculture to be carried on to any extent by the white races of temperate climes. As in Texas and Arizona, Englishmen may superintend the herding of sheep, cattle, and horses, the general manage

ment of estates, or the removal and transport of timber; but all heavy outdoor labor is unsuited to their constitution, and fever and sunstroke can be its only result. With the Fiji Islands the case is different. There the soil is rich and fertile, and cotton and sugar will grow almost without measure. The larger islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, are entirely in possession of the native races; and for many years were given up to the wars, the violence, the utter cruelty and cannibalism, for which the fierce tribes of Fiji have been notorious. The victories of the Gospel, through the agency of the Wesleyan Mission, have wrought a great change, and have rendered intercourse with Europeans safe and profitable for both parties. Five years ago the pretty island of Ovalau, with its rich woods and turret-like hills, was found to be a safe as well as attractive place of residence, and a considerable number of whites resorted to the settlement. The worst class, as usual, in these English colonies, came first; happily the better men, with their families and little capital, soon followed; and the port of Levuka became quite a thriving town. Ere long a "rush" took place from Melbourne and New-Zealand, and several hundred settlers landed in a few months, all anxious to secure the fruitful cotton lands. Finding some difficulty in getting the Fiji natives into their employ as laborers, the settlers took the hint from the planters of Peru and Queensland. But from the first the majority of these gentlemen repudiated any resort to violence; they determined to treat all native immigrants well, and in public meeting asked for the interference of her Majesty's Consul, Mr. Thurston, and accepted the regulations which he framed for their coolie traffic.

It is a fact worthy of note that while the educated classes in England are in the main opposed to slavery, and are found to treat the dark races of the world with kindness and humanity, the common classes of Englishmen deal with them very roughly. In India none hold the natives in such contempt, and are so ready to strike them, as English soldiers and seamen. The English mechanics who superintend native workmen in iron foundries, printing offices, and furniture factories, unable to explain things in the Mahrati, Tamil, or Bengali languages, at once call the

workmen stupid, and explain their meaning by kicks and blows. Throughout Polynesia no Englishmen were ever so hard upon the native races as common sailors and those officers who had raised themselves from before the mast; and it was a most unhappy thing that it was precisely into the hands of this large class of men that the entire immigrant traffic fell, until it has ended in piracy, kidnapping, and murder, and has brought reproach upon the English name throughout the civilized world.

In one or two localities special circumstances were found to favor the wishes of the English planters in leading the natives to emigrate to a foreign soil. In the French settlements under the Governor of

New-Caledonia, especially in the Loyalty Islands, the hand of the Government has pressed very hard upon the people. On many occasions the religious persecution of the Protestants by the priests and local authorities, heavy taxation, restrictions on personal liberty, and forced labor have irritated the people greatly. Was it to be wondered at that the young and active were anxious to get away; and that on many occasions they swam after an English vessel before she could clear the barrier reefs, and felt glad to be taken on board? Many such wanderers found their way to Queensland. The people of Niue, the "Savage Island" of Cook, had for several generations held no intercourse with the outside world; but when they became Christians, and heard of other lands, a natural reaction from the exclusive system laid their young men open to the same desire for travel, and many of them found their way to Samoa and the plantations of Tahiti. But this voluntary emigration was limited, and was confined to the Christian Islands. In the presence of English missionaries, captains and crews could only offer various forms of gain to the natives as inducements to leave home. The outcry against Peru made them afraid to practice violence or fraud in mission stations. They therefore steered their vessels to another quarter.

To the west of Fiji and the northeast of New-Caledonia lies a group of important islands, peopled by a peculiar medley of races. This is the great group called the New-Hebrides; it consists of eight large islands and more than thirty small ones, among which the island of Ambrym

is reckoned one of the most lovely in all the South Pacific. The group is so unhealthy that strangers can not live in it with comfort. In some strange way unknown to history, the people have been thrown into this group from many quarters, and seem to have had no connection with one another. No less than twenty separate languages are spoken in the group, and the learning of one of those tongues is no help to the attainment of any other. The whole population_numbers about 60,000 people, all belonging to the Papuan branch of the Polynesian tribes. To the north-east of this group lies a small cluster of islands of the same kind called the Banks Islands. To the northwest is the Solomon Archipelago, which curves round westward toward New-Britain and New-Guinea.

It was to the New-Hebrides group that the recruiting vessels turned for their supply of laborers, and for a while the halftaught heathen of Tanna, Erromanga, and Vate (Sandwich Island) were the object of their special efforts. The Christian population of the southern island, Aneityum, would have nothing to do with them.

As the year 1868 passed away, and the area visited by the recruiting vessels widened, rumors became numerous that all which had been feared in respect to the ill-treatment of the heathen islanders had been more than realized. Now a missionary or a missionary's wife described in some letter to an Australian friend some deed of violence witnessed with his or her own eyes; then some cook or sailor on board one of the vessels gave details of the visits which he had paid to the islands, and the seizure of persons which he had seen; or some Queensland newspaper described the proceedings of the police courts, and showed that in not a few instances emigrants preferred to be sent to jail rather than go back to the masters who flogged and starv

ed them.

Evidence was soon offered which none could gainsay. Mr. Thurston wrote from Fiji to Lord Belmore, the Governor-General of the Australian colonies, that he had received undeniable testimony that murder had been committed on board one vessel, the Young Australian, which had recently visited the northern New-Hebrides. The statement had been given in writing. Two men who had witnessed the atrocity had appeared before him; and as

the ship was then in Sydney he trusted the Government would prosecute. The vessel was commanded by Captain Ross Howell, and conspicuous among the rougher men on board were Robert Lennie, a Frenchman, and Hugh Levinger, the supercargo. The following statement is drawn out by David Afu, a Christian in Fiji, from the lips of the Tanna men, whose words he interpreted. Below the marks which the men made with the pen he

writes:

"These are their own or true hands with which they made these signs, and when they had made them they said, 'What we have seen and known we tell.' The great ship went to Tanna, and we Tanna natives went on board; then she went to Erromanga, thence to Sandwich, thence When we got there the boat was prepared to Inea, thence to Api, thence to Pama. to go ashore. Bob, the white man, three of Rotumah pulled toward the shore. natives of Erromanga, and three natives They met a canoe belonging to the place with three men on board, one being an elderly man, and two young men. The elderly man was a chief. They were seized by force and thrown into the boat, and taken to the great ship. When on board the ship they wept, and refused to come to Fiji. They did not wish to eat or drink, they wept only. Then said the captain of the ship,'Let them be taken down into the hold till Bob comes back again from the land, and decides concerning them.' When they were in the hold they resisted, and threw stones at the black men in the hold, and shot at them with bows and arrows. Then all the black men fled on deck, and only the three Pama men were left in the hold. Then Bob came and

tried to speak to them, but they threw stones at him, and he fled on deck. Then was opened a piece of the bulkhead in the captain's end of the ship, and they fired with guns. The old man was first wounded in the thigh, but he bound it up and went on fighting. Then the two young men were shot dead. Then the old man was shot again, and died. Then night was over the land, a lamp was put on its stand, and taken down into the hold, and the dead bodies were lifted up and thrown into the sea."-(Returns, 408, p. 58.)

Happily in this case a conviction was obtained. The captain was apprehended

in Sydney, with one of his crew, Rangi; Levinger was apprehended in Melbourne. They were found guilty of murder, and were sentenced to imprisonment for life with hard labor. Levinger was imprisoned with hard labor for seven years. Owing to the numerous complaints which began to be made, Commodore Lambert, who was in command of the Australian station, dispatched Captain Palmer, in H.M.S. Rosario, to visit the New-Hebrides and Fiji, and report upon the subject. The results of his inquiry were startling, and proved that under the so-called emigration system the worst features of the old slave trade had reappeared. Captain Palmer quitted Sydney on March 4th, 1869, and spent three months in executing his commission. He proceeded first to NewCaledonia, where he received the complaints of Governor Guillain, with details of the way in which his people had been carried off. He then visited the southern islands of the New-Hebrides, and held repeated interviews with the missionaries and with the chiefs, who had many affecting stories to tell of similar wrongs. Thence he proceeded eastward to the Fijis, where he was in constant communication with Mr. Thurston and the planters. He has given a most interesting account of his expedition in the book cited at the head of this article, which is both well written and well illustrated. It is full of details as to persons, dates, and places, and must prove an important authority on the whole question of kidnapping from which it sprang. A large portion of the contents of the book occupy a conspicuous place in the Parliamentary returns, as official reports which he rendered to the officer who had commissioned him.

On his return to Sydney, Captain Palmer thus reported on the general question:

"2. All the missionaries at Aneiteum, Tanna, Erromanga, and Vate made the same complaints as to the kidnapping of the natives of that group, and the consequent undermining of their influence with the people.

forcibly seized by the hair of their head, dragged on board, and their canoes sunk. Three natives that I examined at Ovalau, Fiji, all made the same statement, namely, that they had come on board to sell mats, etc., and get tobacco; that on its getting late, they were told they could sleep on board if they chose, and go on shore in the morning; they did so, but in the morning no land was in sight, and they were brought to Fiji.

5. As a further proof of the absurdity of the so-called engagements between the natives and the Queensland agents, a Tanna native informed me, that whenever the vessels anchored, the natives were put under hatches, and their arms held while performing the functions of nature, so as to prevent their swimming on shore."(Returns, c. 399, pp. 17, 18.)

It was a happy circumstance for the interests of justice and humanity, that during Captain Palmer's visit to Fiji, a case came under his notice, which both illustrates the worst features of the slave system, and shows with how much impunity the kidnappers could do their work.

On April 21st, 1869, the Rosario was lying quietly in the harbor of Levuka, when there came in from the westward a small schooner, the Daphne, with a hundred natives on board. She was seventythree feet long, ten feet deep, and of forty-eight tons burden; and the poor captives were stowed away in her little hold like herrings in a barrel. Two-thirds of them were stark naked; all were emaciated and half dead, and one young man had lost the use of his limbs. When the vessel was boarded, it was found that she was bound for Queensland, and that she held a license to import fifty-eight natives from Tanna into that colony. Now she was found in Fiji with a hundred on board, which she had procured somehow or other from the Banks Islands; her log and her papers disagreed, the victualing scale had been disregarded, all her transactions were irregular, and it was evident that she had come to Fiji instead of Queensland, hoping to make a better market. After consulting the consul, Captain Palmer seized the Daphne, landed all her natives, put a prize-crew on board, and sent her down to Sydney.

By the advice of the Attorney-General of the colony, proceedings were instituted, first in the Water Police Court against the