The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-22 00:00:00

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL'.

Yesterday a court was held for the despatch of
public business.
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DR. LIVINGSTON.

The court presented a very gay appearance in
consequence of the attendance of a number of ladies.
to witness the ceremony of presenting the freedom
of the city to Dr. Livingston, as a testimonial in
recognition of his zealous and persevering exertions
in the important discoveries he has made in Africa.
Dr. Livingston was introduced, amid great ap-
plause,
by Mr. J. E. Saunders and Alderman Rose,
the mover and seconder of the resolution, and was
addressed by Sir J. KEY, the chamberlain, after the
declaration as a freeman was read, in the following
speech :—Admitting, Sir, as we occasionally do, to
the freedom of our ancient city, by the public reso-
lution and unanimous vote of this Court, those who
have rendered essential service to their country and
to mankind, yet hardly could two successive pre-
sentations exhibit a more striking contrast than the
oce recently accorded by this Court to a distin-
guished general and that which I am the privileged
medium of conveying to you this day. True, sir,
in both cases we recognise in the objects of this
honourable distinction the friends of civilisation,
the friends of moral progress throughout the world.
But the vocation of the one led him to seek the ac-
complishment of these objects in the " grappling,
vigour and rough form of war," unparalleled hard-
ships of camp and siege—in those incredible dis-
plays of heroism and patient endurance which
brought more honour to his country's name in the
surrender of a fortress than its capture will ever
procure for the foe. (Cheers.) Your calling, on
the contrary, has led you to seek the honour of
your country and the moral elevation of mankind
by the peaceful triumphs of the missionary, by the
expanding influence of scientific discovery, by pre-
paring the way for that intercommumon and com-
merce between alienated races the tendency of
which is to make a corporate guild of all nations, to
unite all the tribes of earth in a bond of universal
brotherhood, to hasten that grand millenium of the
whole civilised world " when nation shall not lift
up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more." (Cheers.) But, sir, on occasions
like the present it is expected that I should ex-
plain to a newly-admitted member of our body the
grounds on which this Court has designated him to
an enrolment with patriots, with heroes, with
statesmen, with all who have left on their genera-
tion the stamp of greatness, and whose labours will
outlive their names. In fulfilling this expectation
my only difficulty is in deciding on which aspect of
your beneficent labours it will become me chiefly
to insist. The commercial constitution of our body,
however, would perhaps suggest that I mention
first that which, except as sub4ervient to ulterior
results, you would yourself only think of last. I
mean the vast openings for commerce which, by
means of your geographical discoveries, are now
made in the interior of the African continent. Con-
sidering the enterprise and zeal which mark the
age in which we live, there is perhaps hardly a fact
more remarkable than the ienorance, the contented
ignorance, in which we have allowed ourselves to
remain in reference to this part of the world, leaving
it on our maps a hopeless blank, a great unknown
of waste and barrenness. and interminable sands, as
if the malediction which by some is supposed to
attach to the inhabitants was thought by travellers
to be extended to the soil. But what, sir, has
been elicited ix the course of your laborious journeys
of 11,000 miles, through the damp morass and arid
desert, across rolling torrents and under scorching
suns, in feverish sickness and with wasted frame ?
Why, that, instead of a waste howling wilderness,
there is in the heart of that unexplored continent
a mine of material wealth ; that nature has scat-
tered there with lavish hand the choicest of her
products; that roots are embedded in that soil of
the highest value to the healing art ; that the indigo
plant throws out its spreading leaf in wild and use-
less luxuriance; and that tusks of ivory which would
be well bartered for the best commodities of Euro-
, pearl merchandise lie rotting in the rain or bleach-
ing under a torrid sun. Nor are there wanting, we
are glad to hear from you, facilities for entering upon
this most desirable commerce. The African mind is

awake. The Portuguese colonies are casting off their
jealousies. The slavedeslers, taught by your wise
counsels, are turning their though tsto the prospect of
a more lawful commerce, insomuch that it seems not
too ranch to expect that if a ship were to sail up
the Zambese river to-morrow not only might it be
soon filled with the most valuable materials for our
borne manufactures, but every facility for interna-
tional barter would be afforded by the natives
themselves. Sir, I mentioned the slave dealer just
now, and the word suggests an anticipated and
glorious result of your labours which, if realised,
would make Africa almost worship the very sands
which bore the imprint of your footsteps, and cause
every wind that swept over her desert to resound
with her deliverer's name. I allude to the ultimate
extinction of the base trafficking in human blood,
and so effacing from the world's history the foulest
blot that ever stained its page. (Loud cheering.)
Sir, a nation which has expended 20 millions of her
money in the abolition of the slave trade, and still
devotes a quarter of a million annually to the same
sacred purpose, cannot be supposed to be indifferent
to any plans by which her righteous efforts may be
brought to a triumphant issue ; and if, as some of
our most enlightened travellers concur with you in
thinking, the Moorish slave dealer only persists in
his nefarious calling because he can find no other
gainful employment, and if, as your discoveries
have abundantly proved, there is nothing to forbid
the groat Zambese river, teeming as it does on
either side with all that could minister to man's
natural. wants, from becoming a permanent com-
mercial path into the interior of Central Africa, all
hope favours the probability that on mere considera-
tions of worldly policy, the trade in human flesh
and blood will soon be driven out of the field, and
the last vestige disappear, of a praciice which for

_
centuries hasbeen areproach to civilisation and a
stigma to the Christian name. Jut all this time,
Sir, I feel I am overlooking that feature of your
successes the hope of which first led you to embark
on those perilous undertakings—successes which
alone could have borne you up under the unex-
ampled privations and dangers of the last 15
years, and which, when the ships of mer-
chandise have ceased and the fine gold .of earth
Shall have become dim—when there shall be no
mercenary to drag the negro from , his home
and no oppressor to bind on the fetters of the
slave, will be. their own satisfaction and their
never-ending reward. Yes, sir, I am glad to be
recalled from all further allusion to the commercial
and social benefits of your discoveries by the re-
' rnembra,nce that I stand in the presence not of the
accomplished traveller only, noting- down with
discriminating accuracy all that could throw light
on t' e phenomena of climes and races—nor yet of
the man of science only, enlarging the field of
human thought and knowledge by tho careful
philosophy of his observa.qons—nor yet of tho
enlightened statist only opening up to the enter-
prise of his country new channels for the develop-
ment of the national resources—bat that I stand
in the presence of a man of • God, of a Christian
misSionarv, of one who is willing to spend and be
spent in the noblest of sertii.,..es, and that on behalf
Of the most injured and oppresed of men.
(Cheers.) Sir, let me in the presence of this Court
and in their name do all honour to that sentiment'
of yours, breathing as it does the 'spirit of a high-
toned Christian chivalry, that "the end of the
geographical feat is the beginning of the missionary
enterprise." Yes, sir, what we irre now doing for
the evangelization of this distant continent is but
tLe beginning of the liquidalion of that righteous
debt with which all Chistendom is chargeable for
Africa's protrasted wrongs. The first instalment
of that mighty deodarid which the retribution of
Heaven demands of us for the hearts we have
broken, and the homes we have desolated, and the
blood which has been shed, enough to have satu-
rated whole acres of those burning sands, when
every year saw 150,000 of Afric's sons transported
With ruthless violence to other climes to furni;4l-1
victims for cupidity and fraud. Oh, sir, what
heart is there so cold as not to respond to that
touching aspiration in one of your letters—..ts may
God grant me life to do good to this poor a
Al • 2,)
(Loud cheers.) In thisassembly,lf:4lll sure not
'one. We do indeed tender you this token of our
grateful esteem for your services to commerce, for
your con!ribution to science, for 'the advanced post
to which you [axe conduced tr, in the march of a
mo ra c ; but we wcaud.e.lso that you should.
bear back withyou to the scene of your honoured la-
bours the assurance of ourhea rt-"Zelt prayer that the eye
of an unslumbering Providete7e may watch over
your path ; that the promised presence of
your
bavioar may cheer you sin' er all opposition and
discouragement ; that idols abolished, superstition
renion e.l eyes ()riled, (2.•-zi-t-4 COnvt rt,d may F a
• • I,dese,, !7o you of a pospeeiee
woce : afee -H • r.!
• e...,y to he called to your rest
t "mu has:, z.--;;!(7. e.en of Afr'CA'S rece-

s—eo "wilderness be-
corn, like Eden' , and her desert Ike the gardens of
the Ea.o." (Long continued cheers.)
Dr. LIVINGSTON, who on risi!Jg was mostvfarmly
greeted, slid—My Lord Mayor, [ beg leave to
-.-rlder to your Lordship ancl, the Court my heart-
' -,tks for the boor:ur which bas 'just been con-
I-,:an only say chat my 'pert is
Livingston was here alino- t overcome with.
I cannot express myself in the eloquent
,rnfvrt• '>v!'idA has fallen from my friend Sir John '
.ey, hot i eau ye,l that it has a great effect
~,,fee I upcp. Loy. `,earl; when 1 t.ea the kind interes'
that you take in Africa, anJ tie kind expre:,:ions
which you make use of respecting my future labpurs
there. (Rear; hear.) When iu Africa I had not

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