by the authorities of the Island. A portion of the cargo, (146 head) was insured at New-Orleans for $71,330.

On the 4th Feb. 1833, the Brig Encomium, from Charleston to New-Orleans with 45 slaves, was also wrecked near Abaco, and the slaves carried into New-Providence, where, like their predecessors, they were declared to be free.

In Feb. 1835, the Enterprise, another regular slaver from the National Domain, on her voyage to Charleston, with 78 slaves, was driven into Bermuda in distress. The passengers, instead of being thrown into prison as Bermudians would have been in Charleston under similar circumstances, were hospitably treated, and permitted to go at large. These successive and unexpected transmutations of slaves into freemen, roused the ready zeal of the Federal Government. Directly on the loss of the Comet, instructions were sent from Washington to our Minister, to demand of the British Government the value of the cargo. In 1832, another despatch was forwarded on the subject. The instructions were again renewed in 1833; the Secretary of State remarking, this case "must be brought to a conclusion the doctrine that would justify the liberation of our slaves, is too

dangerous to a large section of our country to be tolerated."

In 1834, fresh instructions were sent, and a demand ordered to be made for the value of the slaves in the Encomium.

In 1835, similar instructions were sent relative to the Enterprise.

In 1836, the instructions were renewed; the Secretary observing to Mr. Stevenson, "In the present state of our diplomatic relations with the Government of His Britanic Majesty, the most immediately pressing of the matters with which the United States' Legation at London is now charged, is the claim of certain American citizens against Great Britain for a number of slaves, the CARGOES of three vessels wrecked in British Islands in the Atlantic.'

Thus for six successive years did the Cabinet at Washington keep sending despatches to their agents in England, urging them to obtain payment from Great Britain for these cargoes of human flesh. Nor were those agents remiss or reluctant in fulfilling their instructions. Numerous were the letters addressed to the British Secretary, claiming either the restoration of the slaves, or their equivalent in money.

From a long and laboured communication from

Mr. Stevenson to Lord Palmerston, we extract the following morceau.

"The undersigned feels assured that it will only be necessary to refer Lord Palmerston to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of many of the States, to satisfy him of the existence of slavery, and that slaves are there regarded and protected as property that by these laws, there is in fact no distinction in principle between property in persons and property in things; and that the Government have more than once, in the most solemn manner, determined that slaves killed in the service of the United States, even in a state of war, were to be regarded as property, and not as persons; and the Government held responsible for their value."

No answer having been vouchsafed to this letter, and the argument being exhausted, Mr. Steyenson tried the virtue of a diplomatic hint that the United States would go to war for their slaves; expressing his hope in a letter to Lord Palmerston, that the British Government would "not longer consent to postpone the decision of a subject which had been for so many years under its consideration; and the effect of which can be none other than to throw not only additional impediments in the way of an adjustment, and in

crease those feelings of dissatisfaction and irritation which have already been excited; but by possibility tend to disturb and weaken the kind and amicable relations which now so happily subsist between the two countries, and on the preservation of which, so essentially depend the interests and happiness of both." (Letter of 31st December, 1836.)

How this hint was received we are not informed; but it is certainly not creditable to the British Government, that instead of a prompt and frank refusal to deliver into cruel and perpetual bondage, innocent men who had providentially been thrown under its protection, or to estimate their value in pounds, shillings, and pence, it had, at our last accounts, avoided giving a decided answer to the demands of the Washington Cabinet, under pretence of taking the opinion of the law officers of the crown.

The negotiation was made public in consequence of a call by the Senate on the President (7th Feb. 1837) for a copy of the "Correspondence with the Government of Great Britain in relation to the outrage committed on our flag, and the rights of our citizens, by the authorities of Bermuda and New-Providence, in seizing the slaves on board the Brig Encomium' and 'En

terprise,' engaged in the coasting trade, but which were forced by shipwreck and stress of weather into the ports of those Islands."

The language of this resolution, indicates the influence exerted by slavery over the Federal Government. Should a murderer escape from England and land on our shores, we refuse to surrender him to the justice of his country; but when the West India authorities refuse to deliver two hundred and eighty-seven innocent men, women, and children, thrown by the tempest under their protection, into hopeless interminable slavery, the Senate solemnly pronounce the refusal to be an outrage on our flag, and the rights of our citizens. Moreover, the liberation of these persons is spoken of as a seizure of them, and the slavers carrying human cargoes to market, are most audaciously declared to have been engaged in the coasting trade! The real trade in which these vessels were engaged, was

THE AMERICAN SLAVE Trade under THE PROTECTION AND REGULATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

We shall first exhibit the character and extent of this trade, and then show that it is in fact car