RESULTS OF SLAVERY. 39 



implicated in this debasing and demoralizing traffic. 

 Indeed it appears from the best information obtained 

 on the subject, that since the vigilance of our 

 cruizers has comparatively put a stop to the trade on 

 the west coast of Africa, — where it has received a 

 great discouragement — it has been greatly extended 

 on the east. Could it but have been foreseen by our 

 Government that their efforts upon the west coast, 

 would in proportion as they were successful, only 

 tend to drive the traders in human flesh to the 

 eastward, it is probable that Mombas would have 

 still been retained under our dominion ; for such a 

 possession would have enabled us to exercise an 

 effectual control in that quarter : as it is, it gives 

 additional reason to regret that the place was ever 

 abandoned. The horrors of the passage — horrors 

 which no imagination can heighten, no pen ade- 

 quately pour tray — are by this alteration in the 

 chief seat of the accursed trade most fearfully aug- 

 mented. The poor victims of cruelty and fraud and 

 avarice, in their most repulsive forms, are packed 

 away between decks scarcely three feet high, in 

 small vessels of 30 or 40 tons, and thus situated 

 have to encounter the cold and stormy passage 

 round the Cape : the average mortality is of course 

 most frightful, but the smallness of the vessels em- 

 ployed decreases the risk of the speculators in 

 human flesh, who consider themselves amply repaid, 

 if they save one living cargo out of every five 

 embarked ! 



