PREFACE. ix 



inhabitants to distrust, fear, or resent the approach of the 

 stranger-race. How is lie to face those carriers of demora- 

 lisation wlio, to use the apposite language of the ' Times,' 

 when commenting on the subject, ' spread themselves over 

 the world, following everywhere the bent of their own 

 nature, doing their own will, following their own gain — too 

 generally doing and being nothing that a heathen will 

 recognise as better than himself,' or by many degrees as 

 good ? Even a missionary of the highest qualifications, such 

 as we now aspire to have but rarely possess, might be 

 baffled by such foes ; how then, we ask with the same 

 journal, ' can a feeble missionary, who would too often be 

 thought but a poor creature at home with every advantage 

 in his favour, hope to stem with a few phrases the torrent 

 of i)rofligacy he finds already in possession of the ground ? ' 

 The remedy proposed is ' to convert our masses at home : ' 

 unfortunately this suggestion, besides being too common* 

 place, too rational, and too little ostentatious, indicates a 

 process too slow to meet the urgency of the case. But 

 what could be done, if the country were in earnest, would 

 be to take care that at least the most prominent offences of 

 these destroyers and corruptors should inevitably meet the 

 punishment which they deserve. 



It is time. In various parts of this book will be found 

 evidence enough of the pressing need of such a policy. 

 But if more were reciuired, tlie fiiahtful incidents brought to 

 our notice recently in connection with the ' Carl,' a slave- 

 trader, pretending to be an cnngrant ship, supply a 



