INTRODUCTION. 7 



be introduced to aid missionary operations, it was quite 

 striking to observe, several hundreds of miles from the 

 ocean, the very decided influence of that which is known 

 as Lord Palmerston's policy. Piracy had been abolished, and 

 the slave-trade so far suppressed, that it was spoken of by 

 Portuguese, who had themselves been slave-traders, as a thing 

 of the past. Lawful commerce had increased from an annual 

 total of 20,000?. in ivory and gold-dust, to between two and 

 three millions, of which one million was in palm oil to our 

 own country. Over twenty Missions had been established, 

 with schools, in which more than twelve thousand pupils were 

 taught. Life and property were rendered secure on the Coast, 

 and comparative peace imparted to millions of people in the 

 interior, and all this at a time when, by the speeches of influ- 

 ential men in England, the world was given to understand 

 that the English cruisers had done nothing but aggravate the 

 evils of the slave-trade. It is so reasonable to expect that 

 self-interest would induce the slave-trader to do his utmost to 

 preserve the lives by which he makes his gains, that men 

 yielded ready credence to the plausible theory; but the 

 atrocious waste of human life was just as great when the 

 slave-trade was legal ; it always has been, and must be, 

 marked by the want of foresight characteristic of the mur- 

 derer. Every one wonders why he, who has taken another's 

 life, did not take this, that, or the other precaution to avoid 

 detection ; and every one may well wonder why slave-traders 

 have always, by over-crowding and all its evils, acted so 

 much in direct opposition to their own interests, but it is 

 the fatality of the murderer ; the loss of life from this cause, 

 simply baffles exaggeration. 



On this subject the opinion of the Eev. J. L. Wilson, a 

 most intelligent American Missionary, who has written by 



