cxxx 
APPENDIX. No, VI. 
to abridge the extent of this trade. Still however the course of improve- 
ment in this part of Africa, has been extremely retarded by the right which 
Portugal has hitherto retained of carrying on the slave trade from Bissao, 
and by the trade carried on either by real Spanish ships or by counterfeit 
Spaniards so well disguised as to escape detection. 
Besides the trade thus carried on, cargoes of slaves have frequently been 
smuggled by English and American traders, availing themselves of the faci- 
lities which the creeks and rivers of Africa afford for such transactions, and 
taking their chance of escaping the cruizers on the coast. A contraband trade 
of this kind appears to have been carried on to some extent ; by means of 
which various cargoes of slaves have been transported to the Brazils and the 
Island of Cuba. 
These facts are mentioned for the purpose of shewing that considerable 
obstacles to improvement, arising from the partial continuance of the slave 
trade, are still experienced, even in that part of Africa which has enjoyed the 
greatest privileges and exemptions. Under such circumstances it would be 
most unreasonable to look for that progress in the arts of agriculture and peace- 
commerce which we should have been entitled to expect, in case the suppres- 
sion of the slave trade had been complete and universal. 
But even under much more favourable circumstances than we have reason at 
present to expect, it would by no means follow that the mere removal of that 
great obstacle to regular industry and commerce, would in any very short 
space of time produce considerable or extensive improvements. The ignorance, 
the profligacy, the improvidence and the various other moral evils, which 
necessarily accompany the slave trade, will, it is to be feared, long survive the 
extinction of that traffic which produced and fostered them. The whole history 
of mankind shews that the progress of civilization is always extremely slow 
duringits earliest stages; and that the first steps in the career of improvement 
are constantly the most painful and difficult. Hence, we may be justified in 
drawing the most favourable conclusions from the comparatively great increase 
which has already taken place in the commerce of Africa during a very short 
period, in consequence of a. partial removal of those evils, which previously 
had almost excluded the very possibility of improvement. 
