406 
THE SLAVE QUESTIOIJ. 
Expedition to lessen us in the estimation of the 
African, — or that other means should be devised for 
following up the benevolent intentions of Her Ma- 
jesty’s Government. 
Before we venture to allude to those means, we 
think it necessary to advert to the great and perplex- 
ing question of the suppression of the Slave Trade. 
This we do with much diffidence, as, — although in 
furtherance of that great object, — we were not actually 
employed against slavers ; so that we can only give im- 
pressions of its baneful operations in the interior, and 
from consideration of the broad principle of the case. 
Some of our readers may think this beyond our province, 
and others that it is superfluous, inasmuch as any per- 
son may draw his conclusions from the latter source as 
we have. It may, however, be of some advantage to 
the public to have the facts stated in a simple form, 
and, at all events, it will be important as preparatory 
to the suggestions we propose to make. 
We should much exceed our limits, by drawing 
largely on the evidence now before the House of Com- 
mons, but we have extracted some of the most “glaring 
instances” from the testimony of the best informed''^ 
which we trust will be found to confirm Lord John 
* In the year 1787, the number of slaves exported from Africa to the 
Western World, was 100,000. In the year 1839, it was about the 
same, or even very much more, as Sir F. Buxton estimated it at 
150,000. It fell off to 32,600 between 1840 and 1845 ; but in 1846 
it had reached 64,000, thus proving that the difference is a fluctation, 
