SL AVERV. 



1814, had been rendered more precise and exten- 

 sive by the treaty concluded with Britain, at the 

 Hague, May 4, 1818. Sweden had already done 

 the same, according to the treaty of March 3, 1813.* 

 The United States of America engaged, in the 

 treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814, to do all in 

 their power for the entire suppression of the slave- 

 t rade. November 23, 1826, a treaty was concluded, 

 with Brazil, for the abolition of the slave-trade ; and 

 it was accordingly prohibited after March, 1830. In 

 spite of these treaties, the illicit slave-trade con- 

 tinued, and, as we have already stated, more cruelly 

 than before. Spanish and French vessels were, and 

 probably are still, the ones chiefly engaged in it. 

 The latter were considered to out-number, much, 

 all the others put together. The British there- 

 fore, sent ships of war to Sierra Leone, in 1816, to 

 capture the slave-ships; but they were unable to 

 put a stop to the trade, for the slave-markets in 

 Brazil and Cuba offered powerful temptations to 

 unprincipled men, and some individuals in the 

 United States were willing to provide them with 

 swift vessels, calculated for their disgraceful and 

 worse than piratical traffic.f In 1832, France and 

 Britain concluded a treaty, by which the two 

 governments allow each the right of searching the 

 other's ships, under certain circumstances, in the 

 region of the slave-trade ; and if the United States 

 should consent, to the same arrangements, important 

 consequences might be expected. Still more ad- 

 vantageous, perhaps, would it be if the United 

 States and Spain would conclude such a treaty, so 

 that the vessels of the former power could search 

 the Spanish slave-vessels in the vicinity of Cuba, 

 which at present can be done only by the British. 

 The evils of slavery we have already touched on 

 in the previous part of this article. The produc- 

 tiveness of slave-labour, as compared with free la- 

 bour, we cannot speak of at present. It is generally 

 considered far inferior. Some, indeed, have main- 

 tained that certain kinds of work for instance, that 

 required on the rice and sugar plantations could 

 not be performed without slaves; but this is denied 

 by others, as Bryan Edwards. J The numerous in- 

 surrections on the West India islands and in the 

 United States have shown that the abolition of 

 slavery is highly desirable; but the difficulty is, how 

 to bring it about. In the United States, a coloni- 

 zation society has been formed, with the view of 

 exporting as many coloured persons as possible to 

 the colony of Liberia. Virginia has lately made an 

 appropriation, with a provision for its increase, in 

 aid of the colonization society. (See the articles 



* Sweden seems altogether liberally disposed towards the 

 negroes. In 1831, the government conferred on all the free 

 negroes on the island of St Bartholomew the same rights with 

 the whites ; so that, in official papers, no distinction of colour 

 is to be mentioned. 



t " It should appear, then," savs Mr Walsh, in his Notices of 

 Brazil, " that, notwithstanding the benevolent and persevering 

 exertions of Britain, this horrid traffic in human flesh is nearly 

 as extensively carried on as ever, and under circumstances, per- 

 haps, of a more revolting character The restriction of slavery 

 to the south of the line, was, in fact, nugatory and evaded on 

 all occasions. The whole number of slaves captured by our 

 cruisers, and afterwards emancipated, for nine years, from June, 

 1819, to July, 1828, was 13,281. being about 1400 on an average 

 each year. During that period, it is supposed that nearly 

 100,000 human beings were annually transported as slaves from 

 different parts of the coast, of whom more than 43,000 were 

 legally imported into one city alone. It is to be regretted, 

 therefore, that the proportion of the good to the evil is so' small." 



J The creation of free labourers, by which the mechanic arts 

 have come to honour, is one of the greatest revolutions which 

 have taken place in society. It is due to the cities of the middle 

 ages (gee CtKm) ; and great as the effects have been, still greater 

 emain to be produced by the cultivation and intelligence 

 ivluch, in consequence of it, have spread, and are spreading 

 through all classes of society. 



Colonization Society, and Liberia ; also the Letters 

 on the Colonization Society, &c., by M. Carey, 1832.) 

 In England, Wilberforce proposed, June 10, 1816, 

 in parliament, that slaves should be treated as Bri- 

 tish subjects, and that the children born in future 

 should be educated as free persons. These were 

 the views of Burke, Fox, Pitt, Lansdowne, 

 Howick (the present earl Grey), &c. 



On the 14th of May, 1833, the whig administra- 

 tion of Earl Grey brought forward a plan for entirely 

 abolishing slavery in the British colonies. The first 

 proposition was, that the slaves, after a probation- 

 ship or apprenticeship of ten years, in order to pre- 

 pare them for their liberation, should be emanci- 

 pated, and that the slave-holders should in compen- 

 sation, be accommodated with a loan of 15,000,000 

 sterling, to be repaid in such manner and at such 

 rate of interest as should be prescribed by parlia- 

 ment. The term of apprenticeship was afterwards 

 changed from ten to seven years, and the sum of 

 15,000,000 was raised to 20,000,000, to be 

 distributed, not as a loan, but as a gift, among the 

 slave-holders, in order to compensate them for any 

 loss which they might be supposed to suffer by the 

 arrangement A nobler sacrifice of money to hu- 

 manity and justice was never before made by any 

 nation. In the supplement to this work we hope 

 to record the final liberation of the slave. ' 



In South America, with the exception of Brazil, 

 slavery has either been abolished or is drawing to a 

 close. In Colombia, slave children born since the 

 revolution, are to be free on reaching their 

 eighteenth year. Bolivar early set free all his 

 slaves. In Mexico, president Guerrero declared all 

 slaves free on September 15, 1829. 



For the number of slaves in the various foreign 

 countries where slavery is permitted, we must 

 refer the reader to the articles on these coun- 

 tries. There are at present eleven slave-holding 

 states in the Union, viz. Maryland, Virginia, North 

 and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 

 Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri. The 

 district of Columbia, and Missouri, Arkansas and 

 Florida territories also contain slaves. The sum 

 total of the slaves in the United States is 2,010,436. 

 Of these, however, 3305 are in the state of Dela- 

 ware, 2246 in New Jersey, 386 in Pennsylvania, 

 and a few survivors of former times in New York, 

 Connecticut and Rhode Island. The progress of 

 the slave population in the U. States is as follows 



Census of 

 1790 

 1800 

 1810 

 1820 

 1830 



Slaves. 



697,697 



896.849 



1,191,364 



1.538,064 



2,010,436 



Total pop. 

 3.929,827 

 5.305,!)25 

 7,289,314 

 9,638,181 



12,856,407 



For information on the slavery of the blacks, see 

 Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave- 

 Trade; Gregoire On the Literature of Negroes; 

 Wadstrom's Observations on the Slave-Trade ; dur- 

 ing a voyage in 1787 and 1788 (London, 1789); 

 Falconbridge's Account of the Slave-Trade on the 

 Coast of Africa (London, 1788), &c. Some ac- 

 count of slavery among the Greeks and Romans 

 may be found in the works of Reitemeier (History 

 of Slavery in Greece), Walch, CElrichs and Hunter 

 (On the Roman Slaves), in German. (See also 

 Comte, Sur la Legislation.') 



Slavery of the Whites, in the Barbary states; a 

 stain on the history of the European governments, 

 as the negro slave-trade was and is on that of the 

 nations. It never was taken into serious considera- 

 tion by the monarchs of Europe collectively (though 





