244 
On the 27th of August the Spanish 
Ininister declared, that orders had been 
given for the punctual enforcement of 
the treaty on this subject; and in the 
month of January last, an article was, 
on the motion of the Count de Torreno, 
introduced into the criminal code to 
the following purport, viz :— 
Extract from the Criminal Code of Spain. 
“ ART. 276.—All owners and fitters out, 
captains, masters, and officers of Spanish 
vessels which shall or may purchase negroes 
on the coast of Africa, or shall introduce 
them into any part of the Spanish domi- 
nions, or that shall be captured with slaves 
on-board, shall forfeit the ship or vessel; 
the produce of which, when sold, is to be 
considered as a fine; besides which, such 
offending persons shall be condemned to 
ten years’ hard labour on the public works. 
“The same penalties and forfeitures shall 
also attach to all owners, proprietors, cap- 
tains, masters, and officers of all foreign 
ships or vessels, who shall or may in like 
manner introduce slaves into any of the 
ports of the monarchy. 
“All negroes found on-board, or intro- 
duced by any of the above-mentioned 
means, shall be declared free. 
“Of the produce arising from the sale of 
the slave-ships, one part shall be distri- 
buted among the negroes, that they may be 
reconveyed to their own country, or be 
enabled to form establishments in the 
country wherethey are introduced.” 
As yet, however, there has been no 
relaxation of that trade in Cuba and 
Porto Rico. Fewer vessels, indeed, 
have appeared on the African coast 
during the last year under the Spanish 
flag; but the importations into the 
island of Cuba, especially under the 
flag of France, have been large ; while 
the only attempt made there to check 
them by bringing one of the vessels so 
employed before the mixed Commission 
Court of that place proved abortive. 
The whole number of Spanish slave- 
ships condemned at Sierra Leone, by 
the Mixed Commission Court, has 
been eleven, of which three were con- 
demned during the last year. 
The flag of FRANcE has maintained 
during the last, as in some former 
years, its guilty pre-eminence. Almost 
every part of the African coast, whe- 
ther on its western or eastern shores, is 
actually crowded with French contra- 
bandists. Although a French squa- 
dron has for some time been stationed 
on the coast of Africa, for the express 
purpose of suppressing the slave trade, 
no useful effort appears tu have been 
made by it. While the slave-ships of 
‘France are to be found on every part 
Proceedings of Public Societies. 
[ Oct. 1 + 
of the coast, the French cruisers have 
not, as far as is known, made a single 
capture. They have even met witb 
ships trading for slaves under the flag 
of France, and, after exchanging civi- 
lities with them, have left them anmo- 
lested to pursue their illegal and crimi- 
nal traffic. It is even affirmed, that 
they are without any instructions from 
their government to seize French 
slave-ships. 
At Senegal and Goree, which form 
the head-quarters of the squadron, the 
merchants, and even some public func- 
tionaries, are still deeply engaged in 
this traffic. Few large ships, indeed, 
now export slaves from these setile- 
ments. The trade is chiefly conducted 
in small craft, which pass from the 
African Continent to the Portuguese 
Islands of Bissao and Cape de Verd, 
and there deposit their slaves; the 
only effect, even at Senegal and 
Goree, of all the vaunted measures of 
repression adopted by the French go- 
vernment, being this, that some addi- 
tional caution is used in the mode of 
carrying on the trade. In other parts 
of the coast, the British cruisers, 
wherever they touch, find the French 
flag spreading its protection over an 
immense number of slaye-ships. The 
coast appears to be almost covered 
with them. 
But the ravages of the French slave- © 
traders are not confined to the western 
shores of that devoted continent. ‘The 
eastern coast, and especially the island 
of Zanzebar, have recently attracted 
the cupidity of these lawless adven- 
turers; and an extensive traffic has 
been carried on thence for the supply 
not only of the Isle of Bourbon, but 
even of the island of Cuba. 
A vessel, with 344 slaves on-board, 
named Le Succés, was detained in 
April 1821 by his majesty’s ship Menai, 
Capt. Moresby, and carried into the 
Isle of France, where, no claim of pos- 
session or property being preferred, 
she was condemned, and the slaves 
liberated. Thisvery vessel, Le Succés, 
had already made a successful slave- 
voyage from Zanzebar to the Isle of 
Bourbon, where she had safely landed 
248 slaves; the governor, M. Mylius, 
having been informed of the transac- 
tion, had instituted judicial proceed- 
ings agaist her; but the judges, 
whose office it was to try the cause, 
having themselves participated in the 
crime by purchasing some of her 
slaves, concurred in acquitting her; 
and, 
