-»i The Last Phase of the Slave Trade 



But this may be explained by slight errors having occurred 

 in both stories. In Wadstrom's book, published in 1795, old 

 Ormond's (only) mulatto son is represented as having been 

 killed by the natives in 1792, but he may have escaped and 

 reached Liverpool, or Ormond the elder may have had several 

 sons by his native wife. 



It is probable that by the year 1847 ^H ^^^ Spanish 

 slave-trading depots on the coast of Liberia or in the debatable 

 land between Liberia and Sierra Leone had been destroyed partly 

 by the British cruisers on the coast, and partly by the vigorous 

 action of the American Agents or Governors of Liberia — Ashmun, 

 Mechlin, Buchanan, and Roberts. The United States, though 

 it created Liberia and generously lent the infant colony the 

 support of its ships, did nothing — or very little — until after 

 1842 to interfere with the oversea slave traffic. Frequently 

 it occurred that within a few miles of where an American 

 war-ship was landing Liberian colonists pledged to abolish 

 the slave trade, an American sailing vessel would be cramming 

 the slaves between her decks, preparatory to starting to dispose 

 of several hundred captive Negroes in the markets of Cuba 

 or even of the Southern United States, wherein, despite musty 

 prohibitions of 1792, 1807, and 1808, fresh slaves from West 

 Africa, Madagascar, and Mozambique were constantly being 

 admitted. Even the British West Indies and British Guiana 

 offered a surreptitious market for the slave trader until the 

 abolition of slavery in 1833. 



The Spaniards, Portuguese, and Brazilians were the worst 

 offenders after 1808, Great Britain had to pay Spain ^400,000 

 and Portugal ^300,000 to induce them to declare the slave 

 trade illegal to their subjects and agree to a right of search. 

 France and Scandinavia behaved much better. Frenchmen indeed 

 were less connected with the slave trade in the nineteenth century 



171 



