The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-20 00:00:00

CAPTAIN-GENERAL.

The subscribers, inhabitants of this city, proprietors of
urban and rural estates, approach your Excellency with
the most profound respect, in virtue of the invitation ad-
dressed to this vicinity, in the proclamation which was
published on the Occasion of your assuming the govern-
ment of the island, respectfully declaring that one of the
principal exigencies, if not the greatest and must urgent
required from the chief bfits actual situation, is an ener-
getic and irrevocable provision for the perpetual suppres-
sion of the contraband traffic in slaves from Africa.
The memorialists, who are intimately acquainted with
the material interests of Cuba in all their details, and
with the best mode of preserving and securing them in
the distressing crisis in which the island is involved, are
intimately convinced that the only means of arresting
the storms with which they are threatened, are to be
found in what they have recommended to your Excel-
lency's superior discretion. The two corporations, the
most respectable in the Havannah, viz., the most excel-
lent and most illustrious " Ayuntamiento," and the
Ito lal " Junta de Fomento," are of the same opinion,
and have thus addressed themselves to the Provisional
Regency of the Kingdom, with reasons and arguments
worthy of all consideration.
The slave trade is the sole and exclusive cause of
the displeasure with which the increasing agricultural
and commercial prosperity of this island is regarded by
all-powerful England, and that trade is the real or appa-
rent motive for its having become the target of her di-
plomatic hostility.
It is the slave trade which has excited the philanthro-
pic susceptibility of the powerful and numberless aboli-
tionists of England, who loses no opportunity. by word
and writing, in books, periodicals, and newspapers, in
private society, and in legislative assemblies, to address
themselves to the" British Cabinet, in order that ours
may be required at any price to consent to the perform-
ance of our treaties.
It is for the sake of the suppression of the slave trade
that the British Government has solemnly recognized
the independence of the neighbouring republic of Hayti,
from whence we are exposed to a degree of injury, com-
mitted with perfect impunity, which it horrifies the ima-
gination to conceive.
It is on account of the slave trade that two active and
enterprising envoys of the British and Foreign Society
established in London for the destruction of slavery
wherever it is to be found, have presented themselves in
Spain; without any disguise, to the imminent peril of
our tranquillity, for the general emancipation of our
slaves, and we are already aware that in Madrid they
have met with a very favourable reception, as they tell
us themselves, and as is to be inferred from the articles
which have appeared, without any impediment, in the
metropolitan press, on a question, the mere agitation of
which in public has opened the door to'the most serious
calamities.
It is by the slave trade that the number of our natural
enemies within the island is daily increased, according
to the statistical information contained in the "Stranger's
Guide for the Havannah," of the present year, they now
amount to 660,000 persons of colour, or about 60 per
cent. of the whole population, leaving only about 40 per
cent. of whites. In the year 1775 the coloured inhabit-
ants formed no more than 36 per cent. of .the general po-
pulation, so that since that period the whites have pro-
portionally and progressively decreased, to the extreme
point in which they now appear, while the negroes have
gained the relative ascendancy. It appears, therefore,
as the result of that providential law deducible from
these statistical facts,' that the increase of the servile is
destined to prejudice the increase of the dominant race ;
since such has been the result observed by able statisti,-
cians in the other West India Islands, and in the empire
of Brazil, from whence the celebrated Humboldt and De
Tocqueville have drawn the most disconsolate horo-
scope of the future fate of the white inhabitants of other
countries similar situated.
And it is the slave trade which is the efficient cause of
this melancholy phenomenon. It is on account of the
slave trade that the emigration of Europeans has not
been increased, as, for our future welfare it ought to
have been, under .the written provisions of the Royal
cedula of the 21st of September, 1817, under the contri-
bution of 4 per cent., imposed for its increase on the ex-
pense of the judicial proceedings, and under the Com-
mittee established for promoting it.
During the quinquennial period, from 1835 to 1839,

there entered 35,203 white Passengers at the port of
Havannah, where they generally arrive, one half of
whom, as mere travellers, would probably not remain.
During the same period there were landed on the coast
of this western department only the moderate propor-
tion of G 3,055 negroes from Africa. Hence it follows,
that if future events should proceed in the same career,
we shall be compelled, in a very few years, to lament,
without the means ofraress, over the disastrous and in-
evitable consequerices which, thanks to our own apathy,
and our incomprehensible want of foresight, are destined
to overwhelm us.

And this, most Excellent, Sir, is not all. Let us
cast a glance only over the countries which surround
us. The firmest mind may well tremble to contem-
plate the dense mass Of negroes which so horribly ob-
scure our horizon. Nine hundred thousand are to be
found to the eastward in the military republic of Hayti,
with disciplined armies, and holding at their dispo-
sal the whole means of transport which Great Bri-
tain has to give. To the south there are 400,000 in Ja-
maica, who wait only the signal of their proud liberators
to fly to the rescue in our eastern mountains ; 12,000 at
least are scattered over the Bahama Archipelago,
and the islands in our immediate neighbourhood, where
as many more have been placed by British policy from
the captures which have been made at the expense of the
trade to this island. And, setting aside the condition of
the slaves of the French West India islands, which are
now on the eve of emancipation, let us turn our eyes to-
wards the north, in the direction of the Capes of Florida, and
the ports of Louisiana, Georgia, and the Carolinas, which
place is almost in contact with the continent where nearly
3,000,000 of negroes are presented to us—a number so
immense as to excite alarm, not in Cuba only, but
throughout the whole American confederation, whose
very heart is, sooner or later, to be : in consequence con-
vulsively agitated and devoured. Sad to us will be the
day when this event occurs, if we do not prepare our;
selves deliberately in due time, nay, this very day, for
the tremendous explosion.
This is so urgent, most Excellent Sir, that, although it
were certain, as many erroneously suppose, that the ad-
vance of our agriculture would be paralysed without the
aid of negro labour, we ought immediately to prefer to
live in poverty, but security, rather than:with blind cupi-
dity aspiring to seize a rich harvest for a single year,
' expose ourselves the next to lose, not only this, but all
that has preceded it, together with the soil, the machinery,
and the whole territory of the island, in one general in-
surrection of the negroes, so easily stirred up and in-
flamed by cunning emissaries, and fed in our very fields
by those elements of
.combustion which will be thrown
upon the fire from the great centres of rebellion which
surround us on every side.
But fortunately for -the island of Cuba, for its present
inhabitants, and for the interests of. the mother country,
it has not been condemned by Heaven, nor by the stern
law of nature, to the necessity of cultivating its fertile
soil by the sweat of African brows. This was the notion
entertained in a former age when the most fatal errors
were regarded as axioms ; but for the men.of -the pre-
sent day it is a duty to correct the economical and social
mistakes of our ancestors. And guided by the light of
experience, and by the prodigious progress which human
reason has made in these latter times in all branches of
knowledge, we shall doubtless succeed in accomplishing
their correction.

Already in the central portion of the island the
glorious career of agricultural reform has been opened
by 'a son of our industrious Catalonia. He, however,
and all who follow his excellent example, must expect
to have to struggle for some time to come with the in-
numerable obstacles which habit, prejudice, bad faith,
and, above all, the deleterious influence of the slave
trade, will oppose to them ; for it is in that traffic alone
thatt
tu,ey
. t memorialists e
stated into besecoecnh
sidera
thai 7e are .to seek forthe origin of all the evils by which
~
we are ass;,'
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Spanish Indies from the precipice whose brink it over-
looks. •

THE LATE T. —. —E. L.—The intense anxiety
that so long and so universally prevailed as to the mys-
terious and melancholy circumstances which attended
the, death of the most popular female poet England has
ever produced, is as it is ever
! now set at rest, So far
," in which
every particular that has reached her own relatives and
Vie .atnod bLei,t, e
rbayr y the
i ze
mpaui bn lsi coaf andon
tion
MissofL Mr. Illanchard's
mostintimate friends, is frankly and fearlessly given to
the world. The story is one of absorbing interest, and
would attract universal attention to the work even if it
were not, as it is, -a most graceful and touching piece,of
biography. The "Remains," however, are of still more
interest than the memoir, since they form the last ems-'
nations that will ever reach us from one of the brightest
and most gifted spirits of our time. The " Remains"
least equaloccupy il merit to anything else Miss an entire volume of the work,
i
comprising a new tragedy and above a hundred pieces in
andver arseae atrid prose;
Landon ever wrote.
FEMALE LECTURERS.—Last week two stran-
ger ladies delivered lectures on Tee-totalissa in the South Seces-
sion meeting-house, Perth, and so successful had they been in
making converts, that at the conclusion of one of the lectures
no less less than '2OO females enrolled themselves under the ban-
ner of total abstinence by signing tile Pledge. During the
lectAuresstivhleACßw Bu
hurehwassi
Fanny Ellsler has cleared about 45,0001. in Havannah and New
c;Ewsdse.d__ to
It excess.—Perth Paper.
is calculated that
Orleans, bet:ries presents of all kinds, that, at auction, would
bring 20,0001. more. Probably by next summer she may be
able to carry to France with her about 100,000/, in exchange
for -Cracoviennes; Cachucas, and Sylphides. Pretty fair busT.
vices this, notwithstanding the suspension of specie payments.--
_. ..._
NewL.Yoilz Journid. - '--