ee ’ = 
1822.] 
House of Commons by Mr. Wilber- 
force, imploring his majesty to repre- 
sent, in the most urgent manner, to the 
different governments whose subjects 
were engaged in this nefarious com- 
merce, the necessity of their adopting 
stronger and more effectual measures 
of repression, in order to discharge 
their plainest and most incumbent 
obligations, and to redeem the solemn 
pledges they had given to this country 
and to Europe, respecting the entire 
abolition of the slave trade. 
‘The correspondence of his majesty’s 
government with foreign governments, 
during the past year, has recently been 
laid before parliament. But the only 
notice which is there taken of the 
above addresses, is contained in a cir- 
eular letter from the Marquis of Lon- 
donderry to our ambassadors at Paris, 
Brussels, Lisbon, and Madrid. 
The whole line of Western Africa, 
from the river Senegal to Benguela; 
that is to say, from about the latitude of 
15° north, to the latitude of about 13° 
south; has, during that period, swarmed 
with slave vessels,—and that an active 
and increasing slave trade has also 
been carried on upon the eastern 
shores of that continent, particularly 
from the island of Zanzebar. 
The chief seat of this detestable 
traffic on the west coast, may be consi- 
dered to be the rivers Bonny and 
Calabar. It was ascertained on good 
authority, by Captain Leeke of his 
majesty’s ship Myrmidon, that from 
July 1820 to October 1821, an interval 
of about fifteen months, 190 slave-ships 
had entered, the former river, and that 
162 had entered the latter, for the pur- 
pose of purchasing slaves ; a fact which 
may afford some idea of what must 
have been the dreadful aggregate of 
misery inflicted, during the last year, 
on that unhappy portion of the globe. 
An active slave trade has been 
unceasingly carried on between the 
adjoining continent and the islands of 
Bissao and Cape de Verd. ‘These 
islands are used as depéts for the 
Slaves taken thither in canoes and 
small vessels, by French and other 
slave-traders, with the view of being 
afterwards removed to the Havannah 
or to the French West-India Islands. 
But it is to the rivers which run into 
the Bight of Benin, and into that of 
Biafra, that the Portuguese slave- 
ships chiefly resort, Many such ves- 
sels, in the course of the last year, have 
"been found there by his majesty’s ships 
_ 
Sixteenth Report of the African Institution. 243 
completely furnished with all the im- 
plements of their criminal traffic, and 
in a state of readiness to embark their 
human cargo. The traffic, however, 
has been but in a slight degree checked 
by these discoveries: for as it is only 
when slaves have actually been em- 
barked that they can be seized by 
British cruizers, the persons engaged 
in the trade often take no pains to con- 
ceal the purpose of their voyage; on 
the contrary, they seem to exult in the 
mortification to which our naval officers 
are subjected, in a great number of in- 
stances, of being obliged by the terms 
of the conventions to leave them un- 
molested. 
At the Congress of Vienna, as has 
already been remarked, Portugal held 
out some hope that in 1823 she would 
entirely abolish her slave trade. That 
hope, it is greatly to be feared, will 
prove altogether delusive, as no step 
appears yet to have been taken to rea- 
lize it, and as every application to that 
effect, on the part of Great Britain, has 
hitherto been eluded by the Portu- 
guese government. 
The revolution which has recently 
occurred in Portugal may possibly 
have interrupted the negotiations on 
this subject. But it suggests also a 
hope, that the Portuguese nation, in 
vigorously asserting its own rights, will 
not be forgetful of the equally sacred 
rights of their African brethren, and 
that they will allow the voice of justice 
and humanity to be heard among them. 
Much may also be anticipated from 
that diffusion of information on the 
subject, which the liberty of the Portu- 
guese press will now facilitate, and by 
which the public opinion may be en- 
lightened, and the decision of the Por- 
tuguese Cortes eventually influenced. 
In the month of April, 1821, Spain 
appeared still so attached to the slave 
trade, that not only was a law for its 
more effectual repression, which had 
been proposed by that able and active 
friend of humanity, the Count de 
Torreno, rejected by the Cortes, but an 
intimation was given to his majesty’s 
government of their intending to apply 
for two years’ farther extension of the 
term fixed by treaty for its abolition. 
To this intimation Lord Londonderry 
replied in the most peremptory terms, 
that his majesty neither would nor 
could lend himself to such a pro- 
position. 
A few mouths later, however, a much 
better spirit began fo manifest itself. 
On 
