mon and uniform mode of treating the language of the south. The Portuguese have missions, both on the east and west side of the continent. Commander Forbes, R. N., says: "In all the countries which have given up the traffic in their fellowmen, the preaching of the Gospel and the spread of education have most materially assisted the effects of the coercive measures of our squadron.” CHAPTER XXI. RENEWAL OF PIRACY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE AT THE CLOSE OF SUBJECT-CONDITION SQUADRON. It was the cessation of the last great European war, which assembled the matured villany of the world on the African coast to re-establish the slave-trade. This traffic had been suspended during the latter years of the contest, as England and the United States had abolished it, and the former was strong enough at sea to prevent other European powers from engaging in it. In fact, she had swept almost the whole European marine from the ocean. The treaties formed at the peace, left Europe to the strife between anarchy and despotism; and gave up the coast of Africa to the slave-trade and piracy. Every evil and every fear which have harassed the world since that time, seem to be the retributions of an indignant Providence. Let it not be imagined that these dealings of justice with men are at an end. What could atone for giving up the coasts of a whole continent to be ravaged by the slave-ships of France, Spain, and Portugal? What compensation for this vicious and deadly scourge has Africa yet received? The cruising, suffering, sickness, deaths and expenses of nearly half a century have not remedied the crime of signing these treaties. The ambassador, minister, or whoever he was, that signed them, bears a load of guilt, such as few mortal men have assumed. England set about remedying this in a more commendable spirit, as soon as the years of free and unrestricted crime, which she had really granted to these nations, were run out. During about twenty years subsequently, when treaties with these powers had granted mutual right of search and capture, three hundred vessels were seized, having slaves on board. But during the latter part of this period, more than one hundred thousand half-dead negroes were annually landed from slave-vessels in Cuba and Brazil. In 1839 the corrective was more stringently applied. Permission had then, or soon after, been wrung from different slave-trading powers, to capture vessels outward-bound for Africa, when fitted for the slave-trade, as well as after they had taken in their cargoes. The treaties provided that vessels equipped for the traffic EQUIPMENT TREATIES. 215 might be captured, so as to prevent the crime. A slaver was thus to be taken, because she was a slaver; just as it is better to shoot the wolf before he has killed the sheep than afterwards. If a vessel, therefore, was found on the African coast with slave-irons, water in sufficient quantity for a slave-cargo, with a slave-deck laid for packing slaves-somewhat as the carcases of sheep and pigs in a railway train, with the exception of the fresh air-she was seized and condemned before committing the overt act. Under this arrangement, with a rigorous squadron, double the number of captures were made, during the next ten years, as compared with the previous twenty. Seeing, then, that, as before noticed, one thousand and seventy slave-vessels were captured, and of the slaves who were not dead, a great proportion were landed at Sierra Leone, and that the whole population of that colony, although established for nearly sixty years, does not amount to more than forty-five thousand souls, young and old, it may be conceived what a fearful waste of life has arisen even from deliverance. The efforts of this squadron were conjoined with those of France and the United States. The former had withdrawn from the treaty stipulating the right of search, and sent a squadron of her own to prevent French vessels from engaging in the slave-trade; and the United States, which never has surrendered, and never will surrender, the inviolability of her own flag to a foreign power, guaranteed, in 1842, to keep a squadron on the coast. These, together with other subsidiary means, had reduced the export of slaves in 1849 to about thirty-seven thousand, from one hundred and five thousand. And since that period the trade has lessened, until in Brazil, the greater slave-mart, it has become almost extinct; although at times it has been carried on briskly with the island of Cuba. The subsidiary means alluded to arose out of the presence of the squadrons, and would have had no effect without them. They consist in arrangements, on the part of England, with some of the native powers, to join in checking the evil, and substitute legal trade, and in the conversion of the old slave-factories and forts into positions defensive against their former pur pose. These measures have also prepared the way for the establishment of Christian missions, as well as permitted to legitimate traffic its full development. Missions and the slave-trade have an inverse ratio be tween them as to their progress. When the one dwindles, the other grows. Although it was no ostensible purpose of the squadron to forward missions, yet the presence of cruisers has been essential to their establishment and success. Trade of all kinds was originally an adjunct to the |