1 66 Voyage of the Novara. 



the remarkable words of the Emperor, with which he opened 

 the Chambers in May, 1854, at Rio, — '* The necessity of a 

 settled industrious population becomes more and more urgent," 

 — have become since then even more significant ; in fact, the 

 result of the endeavours on the part of the Government to 

 increase the amount of labour by immigration, is now a 

 question of life or death for the empire. Every disinterested 

 person feels that, without an increase of labour, productive 

 activity is impossible ; nay, some even apprehend a consider- 

 able decrease in the producing capabilities of the country, in 

 consequence of the effect to be anticipated in Brazil from 

 the abolition of the slave-trade by the interference of England. 

 Up to the year 1851, the importation of negro slaves con- 

 tinued undiminished, notwithstanding the treaty with Eng- 

 land of 18^6, in which the abolition of the slave-trade forms 

 one of the conditions on which the recognition of the Bra- 

 zilian crown by the Government of Her Britannic Majesty was 

 made specially contingent. According to a statement of the 

 Foreign Office, there were from 1842 to 1851 (despite the 

 treaty) S%5yQ\5 negroes sold as slaves in Brazil, so that the 

 amount of the slave population is now upwards of 2,000,000 

 souls. 



The condition of the black population in tnis country is 

 materially different from that of the United States and the 

 West Indies. The colour of the skin, which renders the life 

 of even free and prosperous negroes almost intolerable in the 

 northern states of America, where they are subject to so manv 



