from the government, and who acts in the double capacity of minister and schoolmaster.

Lieutenant Cooper and myself walked through the villages situated to the westward of Sierra Leone. We landed at King Town, the former residence of King Tom. The house in which the king resided is in ruins, and almost hidden from view by shrubbery. From thence we proceeded to Kroo Town, a small village, inhabited by about five hundred Kroomen. The British ships of war on this station have each from twenty-five to seventy of these men on their books.

The trade of this place is considerable. Several vessels entered and sailed 'during our short stay; many of them were loaded with ship timber, which is somewhat like our white oak. 'The other articles of trade are ivoWe sent a boat from Sierra Leone for ry, camwood, wax, and palm oil. Mr Bacon, who came up, and remained with us two days. He has already settled himself, with his followers, (until after the rain,) on Sherbro Island. I fear this island will not answer his wishes; it is low, unhealthy, difficult of access for ships, and is not very fertile. There are many places to leeward possessing greater advantages, one of which I hope he will select for a permanent settlement.

After remaining nine days at Sierra Leone, we sailed for the Gallinas, a place of resort for slave vessels; since which, we have made ten captures; some by fair sailing, others by boats and stratagem. Although they are evidently owned by Americans, they are so completely covered by Spanish papers, that it is impossible to condemn them. Two schooners, the EndyWe shall leave the coast in the mion and Esperanza, were sent home. course of three or four days, for Port Praya, from whence we shall proceed to Teneriffe for provisions.

The slave trade is carried on to a very great extent. There are, probably, not less than three hundred vessels on the coast, engaged in that traffic, each having two or three sets of papers. I sincerely hope government have revised the law, giving us more authority. You have no idea how cruelly these poor creatures are treated by the monsters engaged in taking them from the coast.

Case of the French slave ship Le Louis, extracted from the 12th annual report of the African Institution, printed in 1818.

This vessel sailed from Martinique on the 30th of January, 1816, on a slave trading voyage to the coast of Africa, and was captured near Cape Mesurado, by the Sierra Leone colonial vessel of war, the Queen Charlotte, after a severe engagement, which followed an attempt to escape, in which eight men were killed and twelve wounded of the British; and proceedings having been instituted against Le Louis in the Vice Admiralty court of Sierra Leone, as belonging to French subjects, and as fitted out, manned, and navigated, for the purpose of carrying on the slave trade, after the trade had been abolished both by the internal laws of France, and by the treaty between that country and Great Britain, the ship and cargo were condemned as forfeited to his majesty.

From this sentence, an appeal having been made to the High Court of Admiralty, the case came on for hearing, when the court reversed the judgment of the inferior court, and ordered the restitution of the property to the claimants.

The judgment of Sir William Scott was given at great length. The directors will advert to such points of it as are immediately connected with their present subject. "No doubt," he said, "could exist that this was a French ship, intentionally engaged in the slave trade." But, as these were facts which were ascertained in consequence of its seizure, before the seizor could avail himself of this discovery, it was necessary to inquire whether he possessed any right of visitation and search; because, if the discovery was unlawfully produced, he could not be allowed to take advantage of the consequences of his own wrong.

The learned judge then discussed, at considerable length, the question, whether the right of search exists in time of peace. And he decided it without hesitation in the negative. "I can find," he says, "no authority that gives the right of interruption to the navigation of States in amity, upon the high seas, excepting that which the rights of war give to both belligerents against neutrals. No nation can exercise a right of visitation and search upon the common and unappropriated parts of the sea, save only on the belligerent claim." He admits, indeed, and with just concern, that if this right be not conceded in time of peace, it will be extremely difficult to suppress the traffic in slaves.

"The great object, therefore, ought to be to obtain the concurrence of other nations, by application, by remonstrance, by example, by every peaceable instrument which men can employ to attract the consent of men. But a nation is not justified in assuming rights that do not belong to her, merely because she means to apply them to a laudable purpose.

"If this right," he adds, "is imported into a state of peace, it must be done by convention; and it will then be for the prudence of States to regulate, by such convention, the exercise of the right, with all the softenings of which it is susceptible."

The judgment of Sir William Scott would have been equally conclusive against the legality of this seizure, even if it could have been established in evidence that France had previously prohibited the slave trade by her municipal laws. For the sake of argument, however, he assumes that the view he has taken of the subject might, in such a case, be controverted. He proceeds, therefore, to inquire how far the French law had actually abolished the slave trade at the time of this adventure. The actual state of the matter, as collected from the documents before the court, he observes is this:

"On the 27th of July, 1815, the British minister at Paris writes a note to Prince Talleyrand, then minister to the King of France, expressing a desire on the part of his court to be informed whether, under the law of France as it then stood, it was prohibited to French subjects to carry on the slave trade. The French minister informs him in answer, on the 30th of July, that the law of the Usurper on that subject was null and void, (as were all his decrees) but that his most Christian Majesty had issued directions, that, on the part of France, the traffic should cease from the present time, every where and forever.'

"In what form these directions were issued, or to whom addressed, does not appear; but, upon such authority, it must be presumed that they were actually issued. It is, however, no violation of the respect due to that authority to inquire what was the result or effect of those directions so given? what followed in obedience to them, in any public and binding form? and I fear I am compelled to say, that nothing of the kind followed; and that the directions must have slept in the portfolio of the office to which they

were addressed: for it is, I think, impossible that, if any public and authoritative ordinance had followed, it could have escaped the sleepless attention of many persons in our own country, to all public foreign proceedings upon this interesting subject. Still less would it have escaped the notice of the British resident minister, who, at the distance of a year and a half, is compelled, on the part of his own Court, to express a curiosity to know what laws, ordinances, instructions, and other public and ostensible acts, had passed for the abolition of the slave trade.

"On the 30th of November, in the same year, (1815) the additional article of the definitive treaty, a very solemn instrument, most undoubtedly, is formally and publicly excuted, and it is in these terms: The high contracting parties, sincerely desiring to give effect to the measures on which they deliberated at the Congress of Vienna, for the complete and universal abolition of the slave trade; and having, each in their respective dominions, prohibited, without restriction, their colonies and subjects from taking any part whatever in this traffic, engage to renew conjointly their efforts, with a view to ensure final success to the principle which they proclaimed in the declaration of the 8th of February, 1815, and to concert, without loss of time, by their Ministers at the Court of London, the most effectual measures for the entire and definitive abolition of the traffic, so odious, and so highly reproved by the laws of religion and nature.'

"Now, what are the effects of this treaty? According to the view I take of it, they are two, and two only; one declaratory of a fact, the other promissory of future measures. It is to be observed, that the treaty itself does not abolish the slave trade; it does not inform the subjects that that trade is hereby abolished, and that, by virtue of the prohibitions therein contained, its subjects shall not in future carry on the trade; but the contracting parties mutually inform each other of the fact, that they have, in their respective dominions, abolished the slave trade, without stating at all the mode in which that abolition had taken place.

"It next engages to take future measures for the universal abolition. "That, with respect to both the declaratory and promissory parts, Great Britain has acted with the optima fides, is known to the whole world, which has witnessed its domestic laws, as well as its foreign negotiations.

"I am very far from intimating that the Government of this country did not act with perfect propriety, in accepting the assurance that the French Government had actually abolished the slave trade, as a sufficient proof of the fact; but the fact is now denied by a person who has a right to deny it: for, though a French subject, he is not bound to acknowledge the existence of any law which has not publicly appeared; and the other party having taken upon himself the burthen of proving it in the course of a legal inquiry, the Court is compelled to demand and expect the ordinary evidence of such a disputed fact. It was not till the 15th of January, in the present year, (1817) that the British resident Minister applies for the communication I have described, of all laws, instructions, ordinances, and so on: he receives in return what is delivered by the French Minister as the ordinance, bearing date only one week before the requested communication, namely, the 8th of January. It has been asserted, in argument, that no such ordinance has yet, up to this very hour, even appeared in any printed or public form, however much it might import both French subjects and the subjects of foreign States so to receive it.

"How the fact may be, I cannot say; but I observe it appears before me in a manuscript form; and, by inquiry at the Secretary of State's office, I find it exists there in no other plight or condition.

"In transmitting this to the British Government, the British Minister observes, it is not the document he had reason to expect: and, certainly, with much propriety; for, how does the document answer his requisition? His requisition is for all laws, ordinances, instructions, and so forth. How does this, a simple ordinance, professing to have passed only a week before, realize the assurance given on the 30th of July, 1815, that the traffic 'should cease, from the present time, every where and forever?' or how does this realize the promise made in November, that measures should be taken, without loss of time, to prohibit not only French colonists, but French subjects likewise, from taking any part whatever in this traffic? What is this regulation in substance? Why, it is a mere prospective colonial regulation, prohibiting the importation of slaves into the French colonies from the 8th of January, 1817.

"Consistently with this declaration, even if it does exist in the form and with the force of a law, French subjects may be yet the common carriers of slaves to any foreign settlement that will admit them, and may devote their capital and their industry, unmolested by law, to the supply of any such markets.

"Supposing, however, the regulations to contain the fullest and most entire fulfilment of the engagement of France, both in time and in substance, what possible application can a prospective regulation of January, 1817, have to a transaction of March, 1816?

"Nobody is now to be told that a modern edict, which does not appear, cannot be presumed; and, that no penal law of any State can bind the conduct of its subjects, unless it is conveyed to their attention in a way which excludes the possibility of honest ignorance. The very production of a law professing to be enacted in the beginning of 1817, is a satisfactory proof that no such law existed in 1816, the year of this transaction. In short, the seizor has entirely failed in the task he has undertaken, in proving the existence of a prohibitory law, enacted by the legal government of France, which can be applied to the present transaction."

Papers relating to the Slave Trade. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of the Prince Regent, February, 1819.

No. 1.

Extract of the Protocol of the conference between the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, held at London on the 14th December, 1817.

Present.

LORD CASTLEREAGH, Plenipotentiary of Great Britain.

COUNT LIEVEN,

BARON HUMBOLDT,

PRINCE ESTERHAZY,

do.

do.

do.

of Russia.

of Prussia.

of Austria.

COUNT CARAMAN, Chargé des Affaires of France.

The plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and the Chargé des Affaires of France, having agreed to meet together for the

purpose of resuming the conferences relative to the abolition of the slave trade, Lord Castlereagh presents two conventions which his government has concluded during the present year, the one with Portugal, and the other with Spain, on the subject of the abolition of the slave trade: his excellency requests to defer to another day the consideration of these two transactions, with reference to the further measures which may, under the present circumstances, be to be taken respecting this question. The two said documents are annexed to this protocol, sub litt. A and B.

A note, dated the 19th February, 1817, addressed by the Portuguese minister to the plenipotentiaries, on the question of the abolition of the slave trade, is read; their excellencies agree to take into consideration the contents thereof, as soon as the subject shall again be proceeded in by them, and they order that it may, in the mean time, be inserted in the protocol, to which it is annexed, sub litt. C.

After which the sitting was adjourned.

HUMBOLDT.
LIEVEN.

CASTLEREAGH.
ESTERHAZY.

G. DE CARAMAN.

Note. The annexes A and B to the protocol of the conference of the 4th December, 1817, (viz: the additional conventions between Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain, signed at London on the 28th July, 1817, and at Madrid on the 23d September, 1817, respectively,) have been already printed and laid before parliament.

Annex C to the protocol of the conference of the 4th December, 1817. (Enclosed in No. 1.)

Note of the Count de Palmella to the plenipotentiaries of the five Powers.

LONDON, 19th February, 1817.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his most faithful majesty, having received from his court the instructions requested by his predecessor, M. de Freire, upon the subject of the invitation addressed to him by the plenipotentiaries of the Powers who signed the additional article of the treaty of Paris on the 20th of November, 1815, considers it his duty to make their excellencies acquainted with the tenor thereof, being persuaded that they will find therein satisfactory proof of the plain and candid line of conduct which the king his master has adopted, from the beginning of this negotiation.

His majesty the king of Portugal, not having signed the additional article of the treaty of Paris of the 20th November, 1815, does not consider himself bound to take a part in the conferences established in London by virtue of that article; and the less so, as, at the time when the said conferences were proposed at the Congress at Vienna, the Portuguese plenipotentiarics positively refused to concur therein.

His majesty being, nevertheless, desirous of giving this further proof of his wish to co-operate with the high powers who signed the additional article, in the accomplishment of the object proclaimed in the declaration of the