* than-demon traffic. 
1825.] 
Brazilian brigantine which he had seized 
with 143 of these slaves on board, de- 
scribes the intolerable stench of: this 
floating den of horrors,—“ from the 
accumulation of dirt, joined to that of 
so many human beings packed together 
in a small space—(the men all ironed in 
pairs,) and the smail-pox broken out 
among them, by which nine had died 
before we took possession, and one 
almost immediately after the first boat 
got alongside.” -But the heart of hu- 
manity would be sick to faintness before 
a tythe of the horrors could be enu- 
merated with which the accumulated 
evidence abounds. 
Well, indeed, may the worse than can- 
nibal-traders in this detestable contra- 
band, calculate, “ that one cargo in four 
escaping constitutes a profitable trade; 
when the prime cost of what, according 
to the odious jargon of the villains who 
engage init, is termed ‘ ebony,’ averages 
little more than a dollar each ‘log’ 
(human body), and brings at the Ha- 
vannah between two and three hundred. 
Well, also, may the slave-dealer specu- 
late on the loss of one-half of the tor- 
tured creatures by death before they 
reach the market, when we have on 
such authority a description of their 
conveyance thither.” 
“ Tt appears, from a letter of Captain 
Owen, to the Admiralty, that in two 
ports only, under the dominion of 
Portugal, Mozambique, and Quillinan, 
25,000 slaves are shipped annually for 
Brazil alone! independently of Cuba.” 
Much, however, as all this afflicts, 
it does not surprise us; nor should we 
be surprised at any extent to which 
evidence might happen to go in detect- 
ing the share which our own Colonists 
may covertly have had in this worse- 
We have always 
had a sad and settled conviction that 
there is no other way of abolishing the 
slave-trade but by the abolition of 
Slavery. 
THE CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
A CorresponvEnT has treated this 
subject in a previous article—some por- 
tions of which will appear rather out of 
time; for, even while it was in the press, 
the question it agitates was decided. 
But the probable consequences of that 
decision remain to be considered, if we 
had the nerve to meet such an inquiry ; 
and the actuating spirit by which that 
decision has unhappily been produced. 
We will confine ourselves to the latter. 
The pretence for the rejection of 
Topics of the Month :—Slave Trade-* Catholic Question. 
429 
the Catholic claims is sufficiently noto- 
rious—* Danger to the Protestant Con- 
stitution and Liberties of the Country !” 
But the pretence and motives of politi- 
cal conduct have seldom much affinity. 
The former is the stalking-horse, that 
grazes innocently as he walks along; 
but the fowler, with his rifle-barrel, who 
lurks behind, is a being of very different 
attributes. 
But before we proceed to such dis- 
tinctions, there is one illustrious indi- 
vidual to whom of course they cannot 
apply, whose argument (not that per- 
haps of a single voice) we must first 
decorously dispose of.—[The speech is 
now printing in letters of gold; we 
wish the remembrance of it may never 
be written in blood !] 
The professed, and therefore, in this 
instance, the real motive of the hostility 
of His Royal Highness the Duke of York 
to the Catholic claims, is the obligation of 
the Coronation Oath: that oath which 
his august and royal brother has already 
taken; and which it is at least in pos- 
sibility that His Royal Highness may 
himself, hereafter, be called upon to 
take. A brief statement of the history 
of that oath may enable our readers to 
form some judgment whether the logic 
of His Royal Highness be as unques- 
tionable as his sincerity. 
“ The Coronation Oath was fixed in 
Ireland by the first of William and 
Mary. In Ireland, at that time, Ro- 
man Catholics held their seats, and voted 
in the House of Lords. Roman Catho- 
lic commoners were eligible to the House 
of Commons, and all civil and military 
offices were open to them. They were 
deprived of these rights by the acts of 
the 3d and 4th of William and Mary, 
and the Ist and 2d of Queen Anne. 
It is most clear, therefore, that the 
Coronation Oath can only refer to the 
system of law which was in force when 
the act that prescribed it was passed. 
Now, all the Irish laws meant to have 
been repealed by the bill referred to are 
subsequent to that act. To those laws, 
therefore, or to any similar laws, how 
could the Coronation Oath, with any 
semblance of propriety, be considered 
as applying?” Our inference would be 
directly opposite: we should say, if it 
bound to any thing with reference to 
the modification of those laws, it bound 
to their restoration to the state in. 
which they were when that oath was 
devised and fixed. If the acts that 
‘altered ‘the then existing laws did not 
violate the oath, how could an act that 
should 
