To their Imperial and Royal Majesties, and their Representatives, at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. Illustrious and Gracious Potentates, The Congress of Vienna, in which you last assembled, will form an era in history that must be for ever dear to all good men. Having rescued Europe from the tyranny under which she had so long groaned, you extended your benevolent regards to other regions of the globe. Africa in a peculiar manner excited your sympathy, Deeply affected by the view of her accumulated wrongs, you proclaimed your generous purpose of uniting to deliver her from the state of oppression and wretchedness to which the Slave Trade had reduced her. You resolved to put an end for ever (to use your own emphatical words)" TO THAT SCOURGE WHICH HAD SO LONG DESOLAT

ED AFRICA, DEGRADED EUROPE,

AND AFFLICTED HUMANITY," and thus to raise that vast continent to a capacity of sharing with us in the blessings of civilization and of moral and religious light.

Your Majesties being again about to assemble in Congress, it will naturally become an object of your solicitude to ascertain, whether your beneficent intentions with respect to Africa have been, in any adequate degree, fulfilled. And if it should appear that they have not, it will then without doubt be your desire to devise such measures as may give complete

effect to those elevated sentiments and truly Christian principles which dictated your former declarations in her favour.

It will not now be requisite to advert at length to the nature of the African Slave Trade, and the retrenchments it had sustained, prior to the Congress of Vienna, as all necessary information on those subjects was then submitted to your Majesties.

In the year 1807, Great Britain and the United States of America passed laws entirely prohibiting the trade, in all its branches, to their respective subjects; and, in 1810, Portugal consented to prescribe local limits to her share of it in that part of the African continent which lies to the north of the Equator. These important measures, being aided, at that time, by the right of visitation which the existing state of war conferred on the belligerent nations, produced a very considerable effect. A partial cessation of the Slave Trade took place along a large portion of the African Coast. And on that part of it which extends from Senegal to the Gold Coast few traces of this odious traffic remained; for England, having added by conquest the French settlements in that district to her own, was able pretty effectually there to restrain the commerce of her enemies, and to enforce prohibitory laws against the Slave Trade. This interval of local rest from the ravages of the Slave Trade, short as it unhappily was, served abundantly to confirm the anticipations of wise and good men. The Western shores of Northern Africa were already beginning to exhibit a new and more cheering aspect. The pursuits of peaceful industry and the arts of civilized life, joined to the diffusion of religious knowledge, were, slowly indeed but progressively, repairing the desolating and barbarizing mischiefs of the Slave

Trade, when the scene was suddenly changed.

The peace which followed the overthrow of the revolutionary powers in France, and which has been pregnant with so may blessings to Europe, has proved to Africa a source of renewed cala. mities of calamities greatly aggravated even by the partial repose she had for a while enjoyed, as well as by the disappointment of her new-born and reasonable hopes. No sooner was peace proclaimed than the traders in human blood hastened from various quarters to the African shores, and, with a cupidity sharpened by past restraint, renewed their former crimes.

Among the rest, the Slave Merchants of France, who had been excluded, for upwards of twenty years, from any direct participation in this murderous traffic, now eagerly resumed it; and to this very hour they continue openly to carry it on, notwithstanding the solemn renunciation of it by their own government in 1815, and the prohibitory French laws which have since been passed to restrain them. This revival and progress of the French Slave Trade has, in one respect, been peculiarly opprobrious, and attended with aggravated cruelty and mischief.

During the ten years which preceded the restoration of Senegal and Goree to France, no part of the African coast, Sierra Leone excepted, had enjoyed so entire an exemption from the miseries produced by the Slave Trade as those settlements and the country in their vicinage. The suppression of the traffic was there complete; and, in consequence, a striking increase of population and of agriculture in the surrounding districts, with a proportionate improvement in other respects, gave a dawn of rising prosperity and happiness highly exhilarating to every benevolent mind.

It was in the month of January, 1817, that these interesting settlements were restored to France; and melancholy indeed have been

the effects. No sooner was the transfer completed, than, in defiance of the declarations by which the king of France had prohibited the Slave Trade to his subjects, that trade was instantly renewed and extended in all directions.

The ordinary excitements to the native chiefs have produced more than the ordinary horrors. In the short space of a single year after the change of flags, the adjoining countries, though previously flourishing in peace and abundauce, exhibited but one frightful spectacle of misery and devastation. How, indeed, could it be otherwise when we contemplate the means employed! Bands of plunderers went forth on every side. Towns and villages were surrounded in the night, and set on fire. Their miserable inhabitants, flying to escape the flames, either met death in a hopeless resistance to the assailants, or were seized, carried away, and sold into interminable slavery and exile. By day, the peaceful labourers in the field met the same fate. Ruffians approached them by stealth, seized, gagged, and bound them, and led them away to the ships. Others were dragged before the barbarous tribunals of the country, and accused of pretended or impossible crimes, that they and their families might be enslaved and transported under colour of public justice.

Such are the common practices which every where supply the Slave Trade with its victims.

Now, let it here be recollected, that France had professed, in the face of the civilized world, her abhorrence of this guilty commerce. In the definitive treaty of the 30th of November, 1815, she had pledged herself to the entire and effectual" abolition of a traffic so odious in itself, and so highly repugnant to the laws of religion and nature." As early as the 30th of July,1815, she had informed the Ambassadors of the Allied Powers, that directions had actually been issued, "in order that, on the part of 4Z2

France, the traffic in slaves might cease from that time every where and for ever." She had, even previously to this, assured the British Government that the settlements of Senegal and Goree, restored to her by treaty, should not be made subservient to the revival of the Slave Trade. Yet notwithstanding all this, no sooner do these settlements revert to her dominion, than the work of rapine, and carnage, and desolation commences; every opening prospect of improvement is crushed; thousands of miserable captives, of every age and sex, are crowded into the pestilential holes of slave ships, and subjected to the well-known horrors of the Middle Passage, in order to be transported to the French Colonies in the West Indies. There, such of them as may survive are doomed to pass their lives in severe and unremitting labour, exacted from them by the merciless lash of the cart whip in the hands of a driver.

It has been thought right to dwell with some particularity on the case of these settlements, because it tends to shew how inefficient and futile all the ordinary measures of prevention will prove when employed to counteract the restless and insatiable avarice of the traffickers in human blood.

The good faith of the French government cannot be questioned; and yet how signally have these wicked men triumphed over all its declarations and decrees!

But let it not be supposed that it has been by Frenchmen alone that this dreadful scourge has been inflicted upon Africa. Traders of other nations, assuming the flag which best suited their nefarious purposes, have crowded the shores of Africa, and filled their ships with the wretched victims of the crimes which they excited. Not only have the Portuguese and Spaniards been extensively engaged in these enterprizes, but citizens of the United States, of Holland, and of Great Britain also, disguising

themselves under the flag of some other country, have deeply partieipated in this work of destruction. It would admit of proof, that probably at no period of the existence of this opprobrious traffic, has Africa suffered more intensely from its ravages than during a part of the time which has elapsed since the re establishment of the peace of the civilized world. The bad men of all other countries appear to have combined to blast the improvement and happiness of Africa, and to have joined in a malignant conspiracy to frustrate all the merciful purposes of their Sovereigns towards that ill-fated quarter of the globe.

To account for the late extraordinary aggravation of this tremendous evil, it will only be necessary to recollect the new circumstances in which the Slave Trade has been placed. The restoration of peace has deprived Great Britain of that belligerent right of search and detention of vessels on the high seas, which had enabled her to detest, under the various disguises they assumed, the illicit and contraband slave traders of her own and other countries. Her cruizers can no longer visit at sea, or on the African coasts, ships bearing the flags

of other nations; while these other nations take no measures for enforcing their own prohibitory decrees, or for controuling the conduct of their subjects at points so remote from observation. The omission, perhaps, is not wilful. But, even if those nations interposed more actively, evasion would still be practised to a wide extent. If but one flag could be found which other governments deem themselves bound to respect, and the employment of which for such a purpose its own government is unable, or unwilling, to punish, that flag would be usurped by the whole body of slave traders, and would suffice to shelter their crimes.

Besides these causes of aggravation, the very condemnation of the trade by the great powers of Europe,

having produced a general apprehension that effectual measures would soon be taken for its complete suppression, the sordid men engaged in it have thought that the utmost activity was necessary in order to secure their guilty gains. From the same circumstance the profits have been enhanced, and they are so enormous that bad men are willing, in the pursuit of them, to encounter all the risk of confiscation and pecnniary penalties; more especially, as the facilities of avoiding seizure afforded by the vast extent of the African coast, and the consequent impracticability of guarding it at all points, are so great as very con siderably to diminish the danger.

But, although, in point of fact, little or no progress have been made in practically abolishing the African Slave Trade; and although, on the contrary, it is too certain, that since the Peace of Paris that trade has increased; yet much has been gained to the cause of humanity by the recognition of principles which seem to furnish a solid foundation for the adoption of ulterior measures of decisive efficacy.

The incurable iniquity of this traffic has been solemnly pronounced by all the great powers of Europe. Some of them have pledged themselves, by treaty, ef fectually to suppress it. Spain and Portugal, the only two European states which still authorize the trade, have agreed to deliver Northern Africa from its ravages, and to confine it entirely to the Southward of the Equator. And Spain has engaged to abolish it completely, in the month of May, 1820. But how perfectly unavailing all these declarations and engagements must prove, unless new means are adopted to enforce them, has been already shewn.

It is further acknowledged with gratitude, that some advance has at length been made towards an efficient remedy, by the conventions lately entered into with Great Britain, by Portugal, Spain, and

Holland, respectively. Their con cession of a modified mutual right of search, with a view to the detention and punishment of the contraband slave trader, may doubtless apply, when brought into operation, some considerable check to the illicit practices of the subjects of those powers, when sailing under their respective flags. But how inadequate it must be to their suppression, the past history of the Slave Trade will sufficiently prove: some flag will still be found which will secure the criminal from visitation, and enable him to carry on his trade of blood, in defiance of the laws both of God and man.

It is also admitted, that France, as well as Portugal and Spain, have endeavoured by legal penalties, to impose some restraint on the conduct of their lawless subjects. But then, the penalties attached to their delinquencies are not of a nature to interrupt the course of so profitable a crime: for even one successful enterprize would compensate for the pecuniary loss attending several confiscations.

In the midst of these embarrassing difficulties, what is the course which it would be best to pursue? That is the question, to direct the attention of your Majesties to which, is the main object of this address.

Spain and Portugal are the only two states, whose subjects are at present legally permitted to carry on the Slave Trade. The former of these has stipulated, that her' Slave Trade shall cease on the 30th of May, 1820, every where and for ever. But Portugal has as yet affixed no definite period for her entire relinquishment of the trade. It would seem to be a preliminary step of indispensable necessity, that Portugal should be prevailed upon to prescribe to herself the same limitation to which Spain has already agreed. Surely, that Christian power will not be willing to stand alone, stained with the pollution of this guilty traffic, when abandoned by all the rest of the civilized world; and after she her

self has, in the face of Europe, concurred in the reprobation of it, as immoral, inhuman, and unjust. But, were it possible that Portugal should wish to persist in this practical contempt of every sacred principle, ought she, great Sovereigns, to be permitted to do so? Ought she to be permitted singly to prolong the miseries of Africa, and to frustrate the hopes of Eu rope? Shall your best and most beneficent purposes be thus cruelly defeated? Shall Africa, which you have made the special object of your pious and generous care, be left for ever under the night of pagan ignorance, and the scourge of ferocious barbarism, because one member of the European fa mily chooses to stand out against the compassionate wishes and ge nerous efforts of all the rest?

But it will not be sufficient that the Portuguese Slave Trade should cease in point of law, at the period fixed for that of Spain. The abolition must be declared to be a part of the general law of nations. It must be made by common con sent a rule, imperative on every country possessing a flag which may be abused to the purpose of carrying on this traffic. Without this, what security can be given, that when the flags of Spain and Portugal can no longer be legally employed in this traffic; those of other powers, of Hamburgh, or Naples, or Algiers, for instance, may not be used, either by the subjects of these states, or by those of other countries which have abolished the trade, to protect their guilty enterprizes? The cries of suffering humanity would still rise to Heaven against the civilized world, if substitutions and evasions like these should be permitted. Yet, if the Abolition is left to rest upon the laws and mutual compacts of powers relinquishing the trade, such expedients will, without all doubt, be resorted to by those violaters of all obligations human and divine, who are habituated to this execrable trade.

Supposing this most important step to have been taken; supposing the Slave Trade to be proscribed as criminal by the laws of the whole civilized world; something more, but that an obvious and unobjectionable measure, will still remain to be provided, in order to secure to the recognized law of nations, a full and practical effect. When adequate sanctions and remedies are provided, then, and not till then, will this inveterate evil, the growth of nearly three centuries of crime, be completely eradicated. But without such sanctions and remedies, the dealers in human blood will deride your denunciations and decrees; and continue to revel in the groans and agonies of Africa.

Much might doubtless be done, towards the extinction of this traffic, if the right of visiting and detaining ships engaged in it, or hav ing Slaves on board, were univer sally conceded; so that the national vessels of each state, should be empowered to visit the slave ships of every other state. Nothing short, however, of this universal concur rence of the civilized world in the proposed plan of maritime police, would effectually attain the object in view. It would still be in the power of any independent state, however small, which might with hold its concurrence, to yield the use of its flag to the contraband Slave Trader, and thus to secure his impunity and even if this concurrence were universal, still, while the penalties attached to the crime were only of a pecuniary nature, its extinction would be in. complete. The risk of confisca tion would be weighed against the vast gains of this bloody commerce, multiplied of course by its new difficulties; and it is feared that, in numerous cases, the temp. tation would still preponderate.

But the effectual, the proper, and the consistent, course, when the trade is pronounced an offence against the general law of nations, will be this. Let it be proclaimed