The Sun.
London, England, 1818-10-05 00:00:00

the crime, the calamities they had ~11ztained
were a most appropriate and striking retribution
for it.

Here, Illustrious Sovereigns, I should use re-
serve, it my views were not too high, and my
object of too sacred a nature, to allow me to con-
sult the policy of argument at the expence of
sincerity or of Christian freedom. Three of you,
to whose notice I hope these thoughts, though
in a different language and vehicle, will come,and
from whose pious and generous minds expect a
strenuous support to the great African cause, gill
certainly not hear ‘vith pleasure that the offence
last adverted to was tire partition of Poland. The
remarks of the anonymous Author on that subject
were such as it would be useless to repeat ; for
there probably is not now, and cannot rationally
he, any question of restitution. 'lucre are inju-
ries which would he rather aggravated than re-
paired by a reversal of the injurious act; and such,
perhaps, would be the restitution of an elective
Throne, or of tire political union of an enslaved
people under a turbulent aristocracy, at the price
of new Revolutions.

Italy, it was suggested, might possibly have in-
curred its share of the chastisement by its noto-
rious and gross dissolution of manners. But if,
after all, there should he apparent difficulties in
imputing to the different countries which had suf-
feted by the i'rench Revolution, offences propor-
tioned to their respective shares of the calamities
produced by it, they were only such difficulties as
always accompanied our finite views even of the
ordinary course of Divine Providence towards na-
tions and men.
Some less offending nations of Europe, like in-
nocent
tnemlaers of the same family or country,
might possibly be involved with their more guilty
neighbours in evils which were the penal chastise-
ments of extraordinary, as well as those which
are the natural effects of ordinary, crimes. The
Almighty has particular or individual distinctions
enough, and • a sufficiency of compensatory pro-
visions enough, to reconcile with universal jus-
tice the occasional awful display of his moral dis-
cipline towards nations and communities of men;
and it is evident, that unless such a miraculous
discrimination were made, as was exhibited in
Goshen, a scourge inflicted on many of the na-
tions of Europe must be felt in some measure
by the rest.
But the provocation of the Slave Trade, though
at that moment pre-eminently given by England,
had been, immediately before the French Revo-
lution, equally imputable in point of fact, and
still was so in point of will, though restrained by
the war, to almost all the other maritime nations
of Europe ; and here the Author's statements
are deserving of the most serious attention :--
"As to France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal, their shares
in the oppression of efrica at that epoch of general provo-
cation which immediately preceded the grand Revolution in
France,-were only inferior to our own. 1 mean not. to say
that they were chargeable with no other sins peculiar in their
extent and character to that period ; but in Attica and
the West Indies, those Slave-trading nations bad all, like
ourselvei, recently anti greatly aggravated their lung-esta-
blished offences."
" It way, perhaps, surprise many Readers to hear that the
unfortunate Louie XVI. a short tune prior to the Revolu-
' tien, distinguished himself from all his predecessors by sea-
, lons endeavours to extend the Slave Trade of France.'
" Such, however, was the fact. That shocking trade bad
been nearly abandoned by the French Merchants, and the un-
f. ertunate Monarch, under evil advice, laboured strenuously
to induce them to resume it. By an Ordinance of October,
1751, he offered a bounty of 40 livres per ton upon all ships
that. should clear out from the ports of France for the slave
Trade ; and he adde premiums on negroes imported into
the French Colonies of sixty livres per head in the Windward
Islands, and one hundred hvres in St. Domitieo. By subse-
quent Ordinances these premiums were raised by him to no
less than one bemired and sixty livres in the former Colo-
nies, arid two hundred and thirty livers in the latter. The
natural effect was so enormous an increase of this guilty com-
merce, that in 1757 and 1755 Sixty Thousand Three Hundred
and Fel ty•hve Slaves were imported into St. Domingo alone!
On the whole, it may be fairly computed that Three Hun-
dred Thousand Human Brines were carried into a miserable
captivity at the direct instigation of that Government, which
was soon after so terribly chastised.
" It sway, perhaps, be equally unknown to the Public at
large, that at the same memorable poled Spain began a new
career of oppression in her Colonies, and trained a new sys-
tem of trade for them, expressly in order to encourage the im-
portation of slaves. The facts of this latter case are so va-
rious, striking, and important, that they deserve a particular
statement ; but, from the absolute necessity of compression,
I will here only give the recital of a Decree of his Spanish
Majesty of February, 1787, by which several of the new regu-
lations were introduced.
, " In order,' says that ill-advised and since unfortunate
Monarch, to promote by every imaginable means the great
advantages which the proper encouragement of apiculture
must produce, 1 thorieht proper to cause the several plans
for the introdnetion of negroes into the Island of Cuba, St.
Domingo, Porto Rico, and the province of Caraccas, to be well
examined, with a view of recurring to the urgent necessity
there is for such helps, without which those countries cam
neither prosper nor flourish, not, produce to the State the Ma-
rnewe riches which the climate and fertility of their soil af-
ford ; and giving this serious subject that attention which the
importance of it claims, I have determined for the present
that this trade shall he carried on under the following Rules
and Regulations.' He afterwards, in the loth Article, re-
cites the object to he, to procure for all his subjects the
greater advaiitages in the Slave Trade, as well as is aug-
ment. the number of cultivators in the American Colo-
nies.'
" The contemporary conduct of Holland was of the same
opprobrious cast. The Dutch Slave Trade had also languish-
ed, or was quite extinct in May, 1758, when the States-Gene-
ral, at the instance of the Planters of Guiana, resolved oti vi-
gorous measures for its revival and extension. The leading
resolution was in the following terms:—' That every means
should lie employed to promote a speedy enlargement of the
Slave Trade. Accordingly they voted 250,000 guilders to the
West India Company, and adopted several regulations for en- •
coin-aging the importation of negroes into their Colonies.—
They were indeed limited to the term of six years, hut God
prescribed nearly the same limitation to the commerce, the
liberty, and independency of Holland.
" Portugal, also, there is reason to believe, was rapidly in-
creasing her Slave Trade at the time of the French Revolu-
tion. With her, however, it was not, as with the other
Powers, occasioned by a systematie change in her laws, or by
the direct subornation of her Government. In her share of
the scourge, she has hitherto been equally distinguished front
them."
" Thus cruelly did the great commercial nations of Europe,
ail at the same era, resolve to extend the desolation, the mi-
series, and the crimes of Africa, to the utmost of their power.
Already they dragged away every year 74,000 of her unhappy
children, and a ere at part of her coast began to be almost de-
stitute of inhabitants: yet her insatiable tormentors were de-
termined to drain the veins of her population still more co-
piously, and to obtain fuller meals for their avarice, though
they should reduce her to a desert. But the eve of the Al-
mighty was over them-, and to avenge devoted Africa at least,
if not to save her, he dropped down among them the French
Revolution."
" Surely it was a strange coincidence of events, that so
many different nations should, at the seine era, offer new and
extreme revocation to Divine Justice by the same species of
iniquity, though without ally mutual concert, and that each of
thrill should he, immediately after, involved by the same
cause in new and extreme calamities. But when we regard
the unforeseen and wonderful origin of all these calamities,
the Revolution of France, the coincidence becomes still more
extraordinary: Induced by a common temptation, the lucra-
tive oppression of the African race, many nations start toge-
ther in a new race of guilt : a strange source of unprecedented
evil immediately bursts forth, anel.suddenly overwhelms them
all. A cruel and unlimited slavery is the subject of their
crimes : a lawless and ferocious liberty is wade their eenniten