LEGITIMATE TRADE. 
11 
place supplies the best. 'New objects of exportation 
may no donbt be discovered. Already gum-dragon 
and cassia bave been added to the list of articles 
brought from Soudan ; and when once treaties of 
commerce have been entered into, and merchants 
begin to find security in the desert and protection 
from the native princes, there is no doubt that a very 
large intercourse may be established with the inte- 
rior countries of Africa — an intercourse that will 
at once prove of immense benefit to us as a manu- 
facturing nation, and advance materially that great 
object of all honest men, the abolition of the accursed 
traffic in human beings. It is the latter object that 
chiefly occupies my mind, but I shall not attempt 
to bring it before the native princes in too abrupt a 
manner. In some cases, indeed, to allude to it at 
all would be disastrous. The promotion of legiti- 
mate traffic must, after all, be our great lever. 
I do not profess in this place to do more than 
give a few hints on the present state of trade in 
Tripoli, and the vast tract of half-desert country on 
which it leans. What I have said is perhaps suffi- 
cient to impart some idea of the nature of the 
relations between the Barbary coast and the inte- 
rior, and to suggest the importance of the enter- 
prise on which I am engaged. Briefly, the export- 
ation of slaves to Tripoli and beyond, in spite of 
certain changes of route, is as rife as ever, and in 
this respect everything remains to be done. But, on 
the other hand, the trade which, I trust, is provi- 
