ABOLITION ABOUKIR. 



coulage, glass, coarse broad-cloth, &c. Many ships 

 arc built in its docks. The academy which Gusta- 

 TUS Adoiphus established in 1628 was changed by 

 Christina, queen of Sweden, into a university, which 

 was endowed still more liberally by the emperor 

 Alexander. It had in 1824, forty professors, and 

 more than 500 students, a library of 30,000 vols., a 

 botanical garden , an observatory, &c. In the autumn 

 of 1827, the whole city, including the buildings and 

 library of the university, was burnt down. The 

 Russian jgovernment has taken energetic measures 



for rebuilding it 



ABOLITION of slavery. 



The society for mitigating 



and gradually abolishing the state of Slavery through- 

 out the British dominions, commonly called the Anti- 

 slavery Society, was formed under the patronage of 

 "his royal highness the duke of Gloucester, who was 

 president ofthe society. In the list of the vice-presi- 

 dents were the names of many of the most distin- 

 guished philanthropists, and, among them, that of the 

 great champion of the negro's cause, Mr Wilberforce. 

 The society published several works illustrative of 

 the state of slavery, and pointing out its evils in a 

 commercial, political, and religious point of view. 

 (See Slavery and Colonization Society,) The more 

 immediate objects of the society were to ameliorate 

 the condition of the slaves, and to facilitate the means 

 by which they might obtain their freedom ; and for 

 the accomplishment of these purposes, To remove 

 all the obstructions to the manumission of slaves : 

 To cause the slaves to cease to be chattels in the 

 eye of the law : To prevent their removal, as slaves, 

 from colony to colony, and, under certain modifica- 

 tions, their sale or transfer, except with the land to 

 which they may be attached : To abolish markets 

 and compulsory labour on Sunday, and to make it a 

 day of rest, as well as of religious worship and in- 

 struction ; and also to secure to the slaves equivalent 

 time in each week, in lieu of Sunday, and in addi- 

 tion to any time which, independently of Sunday, was 

 afforded them, for cultivating their provision grounds : 

 To protect the slaves, by law, in the possession and 

 transmission of the property they might thus or in 

 any other way acquire : To enable the slave to pur- 

 chase his freedom by the payment at once of a fair 

 price for his redemption, or of a fifth part of that price 

 at a time, in return for an additional day in the week 

 to be employed for his own benefit : To make the 

 testimony of slaves available in courts of justice, both 

 in civil and criminal cases : To relieve all negroes 

 and persons of colour from the burden of legally 

 proving their freedom, when brought into question, 

 and to throw on the claimant of their persons the 

 burden of legally proving his right to them : To 

 provide the means of religious instruction for the 

 black and coloured population, and of Christian edu- 

 cation for their children : To institute marriage among 

 the slaves, and to protect that state from violation 

 and from either forcible or voluntary disruption : To 

 put an end to the driving system : To put an end, 

 also, to the arbitrary punishment of slaves, and to 

 put their persons as well as property under the guar- 

 dianship of the law : To provide that all children 

 born after a certain day should be free, care being 

 taken of their education and maintenance until they 

 should be capable of acting for themselves : To pro- 

 vide that no colonial governor, judge, attorney-gene- 

 ral, or fiscal, should be a possessor of slaves, or should 

 have a direct and obvious reversionary interest in such 

 property, or should be the agent of the proprietors 

 of slaves. The society further proposed, that the 

 final extinction of slavery should be accomplished by 

 the redemption of all females of the lowest age, to 

 about 40 ; by which means all their posterity would 



be born free. The cost of this measure was cstj- 1 utioii. . 



mated at 300,000. The parent sociVty was sup- 

 ported by many auxiliaries, as well as by the almost 

 universal feeling ofthe nation, whose voice>at length 

 became too strong to be resisted by an interested 

 faction; and ministers, in 1833, brought forward a 

 bill for the entire abolition of slavery throughout the 

 British colonies. This bill, by making a sacrifice of 

 20,000,000 to the slave-holders, to be distributed 

 among them on their complying with the provisions 

 of the act, was finally carried, and came into operation 

 on the first of August, 1834. An abstract of its 

 leading clauses vruT be given in the article Slavery. 

 It is remarkable, that Mr Wilberforce died imme- 

 diately after the completion of this great measure. 



ABORIGINES ; the name given to the oldest inhabi- 

 tants of a country, of whose origin nothing certain 

 is known. The Roman historians gave this name to 

 the people who dwelt in the vicinity of Rome, before 

 the arrival of the Trojans. For the right of abori- 

 gines to the soil, see Indians, and Occupancy, right 

 of. 



ABOUKIR, the ancient Canopus, is at present a 

 village with 100 Arabian inhabitants : it has a strong 

 castle on the western side of a spacious bay, pro- 

 tected by a projecting point of land and several small 

 islands, and is situated on the Egyptian coast, 10 

 miles east of Alexandria. This place has become 

 distinguished, in modern times, by the naval battle, 

 in which the English admiral, Nelson, annihilated the 

 French fleet, between the first and the third of Au- 

 gust, 1798. The latter sailed on May 19, 1798, 

 from the harbour of Toulon, to convey an army to 

 Egypt, under the command of general Bonaparte. 

 As soon as the English admiral, St Vincent, who was 

 cruising before Cadiz, received information of this, 

 he dispatched rear-admiral Nelson, with 14 ships of 

 the line, to the Mediterranean, with orders to seek 

 and attack the French fleet. Aug. 1, Nelson caught 

 a glimpse of the French ships in the road of A. and 

 gave the signal of battle. The French captains, 

 who were just then assembled on board the admiral's 

 ship, had hardly time to retire to their posts, before 

 the first English ship began the attack. Although 

 the French fleet was disposed in a curved line as 

 near as possible to a small island, protected by a 

 battery of cannon and mortars, Nelson suddenly or- 

 dered half of his force to break through, between 

 the island and the French line of battle, and to sail 

 under the shore, in the rear, while the other half ap- 

 proached their front, and anchored within pistol 

 shot ; so that the French ships were attacked from 

 all sides. At sunset, about half-past 6 o'clock in 

 the evening, the battle began. At the end of an 

 hour, 5 French ships were dismasted and taken. 

 The French admiral Brueys, was killed by a cannon- 

 ball ; his ship, POrient, however, continued the 

 battle with great spirit, until she took fire. About 

 10 o'clock, this splendid vessel, of 120 guns, blew 

 up. Of 1000 men, but 70 or 80 were saved. Capt. 

 Casabianca was mortally wounded, and his son, 

 a boy 12 years old, voluntarily remained in the 

 burning ship, and shared his fate. The other ships 

 continued the cannonade till the morning, which wit- 

 nessed the entire defeat of the French fleet. But 

 two ships of the line and two frigates escaped to 

 Malta and Corfu ; 9 ships of the line were taken, 

 one blown up, and another, together with a frigate, 

 burned by the French themselves ; one frigate, how- 

 ever, was sunk. Thus the naval power of France 

 in the Mediterranean was for a time annihilated, 

 the British flag waved triumphant from Gibraltar to 

 Alexandria ; Bonaparte's communication with France 

 was cut off, and his enemies, with renovated force 

 united a^ain, in the subsequent year, in a new coa- 



