The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-26 00:00:00

" In this Act, it is impossible not to recognise that
unjustifiable abuse of force which threatens the rights of
all free and independent nations. It is similar to that
of which Portugal became the victim in 1839, and which
likewise passed into law, despite the opposition of the
Duke of Wellington, one of the most eminent statesmen
in England, •who, in the House of Lords, on the 11th of
August, 1839, strenuously remonstrated against the right
' of visit and search in time of peace.
" If this violence is now sought to be palliated by the
great interest which exists for the suppression of the
slave trade, it is unquestionable that the end sought to
be obtained cannot justify the iniquity of the means em-
ployed ; and no surprise ought to be created, if, under
the pretext of protecting other interests, the counsels of
reason and universal public rights, upon which the secu-
rity and peace of nations depend, be substituted in
the tribunals of the most powerful nations by force and
violence.

" To justify the legislative enactment by which the
English Courts are empowered to take cognizance of
Brazilian vessels engaged in the slave trade and captured,
th British Government. cites art. 1 of the convention
which was concluded on the 23d of November, 1826,
between Brazil and Great Britain, by which convention
the slave-trade on the coast of Africa was abolished.
"But this article is very far from authorising the right
which the British Government claims and usurps.
" By this article the Imperial Government is bound-
-Ist, to forbid Brazilian subjects to be engaged in, and
entirely to abolish, the slave-trade within three years of
the exchange of the ratifications—that is, from and after
the 13th of March, 1830; 2dly, to consider and treat the
trade on the part of Brazilian subjects as piracy.
" With respect to the first obligation, there neither is
nor can be any doubt : and as regards the second, it is
clear that the intervention of the British Government
with reference to the trade carried on by Brazilian sub-
jects is limited to the right of demanding from the Im-
perial Government an exact and punctual observance of
the treaty and nothing more.
" The letter of art. 1 of the convention comprehends
only Brazilian subjects, and the illicit trade which may
be carried on by them.
"It will not be denied that the crimes committed
within the territories of any nation can only be punished
by the authorities of that nation ; nor will it be con-
tested that the vessels of every nation form part of her
territory, for this reason, amongst others, that the
crimes committed on board of them are only punishable
by the laws of the country to which the vessel may
belong.
" It would be absurd to recognise the right of the
British Government to punish Brazilian subjects, either
in person or in property, for crimes committed within
the territory of the empire, without very express, clear,
and positive delegation of the power from the Sovereign
of Brazil to the Sovereign of Great Britain; and where,
in the treaty, is this clear and positive delegation to be
found ?
" To assume, under the pretence of interpretation,
the delegation of a sovereign power which is not ex-
pressly granted would be an infringement of the first
principle of the art of interpretation, which is, that it is
not allowable to interpret that which needs no interpre-
tation.
" When an Act is worded in clear and precise terms,
when its meaning is manifest and does not lead to an
absurdity, there can be no reason for objecting to that
meaning which the Act naturally presents. To have
recourse to conjecture for the purpose of extending or
contracting the meaning of an Act is tantamount to an
evasion of it.
" And, moreover, to assume in this case the delegation
of sovereign power on the part of the Imperial Govern-
ment to that of Great Britain without a like delegation
from the latter to Brazil, would, if indeed any obscurity
existed in the article, be opposed to another rule of in-
terpretation, which is, that everything which tends to
destroy the equality of a contract is odious; and in such
case it would be necessary to interpret the words in their
most_restrictive sense, in order to avert the onerous con-
sequences which might arise from the strict and literal
meaning, or the odium which might be contained in the

contract.
" The spirit of the second part of the convention of the
23d of November, 1826, is not more favourable to the
pretensions of the British Government to adjudicate in
the Admiralty and Vice-Admiralty Courts of Great
Britain Brazilian vessels suspected of being engaged in
the slave trade.
" The traffic is, by the said article, considered as
piracy only by a fiction of law, and it is well known,
and universally admitted, that fictions of law are only
effectual for the purposes for which they are created.
" In truth, the traffic is more hazardous than is rob-
bery on the high seas, less difficulty exists in discovering
and convicting those who are engaged in it than in cases
of piracy, and, moreover, the traffic does not threaten
the maritime trade of the world as piracy does ; hence
the penalty of being engaged in it cannot be as severe as
that which all nations award to piracy without being
deemed tyrannical.
" This truth even England has herself acknowledged
in the various treaties which she has been enabled to
conclude with other nations for the suppression of the
traffic ; for in almost all of these it has been stipulated
_ _

that the penalty of detection should not be the same as
in cases of piracy, according to the law of nations.
" So certain is it that the piracy mentioned in art. 1 of
the convention of 1826 is not the piracy acknowledged
by the law of nations, that the two high contracting
Powers judged the stipulations contained in art. 2,3,
and 4, indispensable.
" If England had considered herself authorised by
art. 1 to capture and adjudicate in her Courts Brazilian
subjects and vessels engaged in the traffic, she would
not have sought to obtain by art. 2,3, and 4, special
authority to visit, search, and capture the said vessels, to
have them adjudicated upon by mixed commissions, and
various other measures in the like sense.

.‘ How the traffic can now be deemed piracy according
to the law of nations cannot be conceived, when so late
as the year 1807 Lord Eldon, one of the first judicial
authorities of England, in opposing in Parliament the
abolition of slavery, contended, that the slave trade had
been sanctioned by Parliaments in which sat the wisest
lawyers, the most learned divines, and the most excel-
lent statesmen ;' when Lord Hawkesbury, afterwards
Earl of Liverpool, moved that the words inconsistent
with the principles of justice and humanity' should be
struck out of the preamble of the Bill (Slave-trade Aboli-
tion Bill) ; when the Earl of Westmoreland declared,
that though he should ' see the Presbyterian and the
prelate, the Methodist and the field preacher, the Jacobin
and the murderer, write in favour of the measure of
abolition, he would raise his voice against it in Parlia-
ment.'

" Nor can it be conceived how the traffic can now be
considered piracy according to the law-of nations, when,
not many years since, even England did not consider
herself degraded by trading in Africun slaves,
and when a short time only has elapsed since other
civilized nations proscribed the trade.
" At this very period Indian slaves are possessed by
Great Britain.

"Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, the United States,
Brazil, and other Powers, have not yet abolished

slavery.

"It thus obvious that acts which are still practised
by so many nations, and which some few years since
were practised by all the world, cannot with justice, be
deemed piracy, except with nations who have expressly
agreed so to consider them in their treaties.

"If the African slave-trade is not piracy according to
the law of nations—if by the convention of 1826 Brazil
did not arm England with the right to adjudicate as
piracy, and punish the persons, and confiscate the pro-
perty of Brazilian subjects suspected of being engaged
in the slave-trade, it is evident that England cannot
exercise that right by means of her tribunals without
offending the sovereignty and independence of Brazil.
" Nor has Great Britain hitherto con,idered herself
armed with this right against the subjects of Brazil,
who may have been engaged in the slave-trade ; but, on
the contrary, she has expressly acknowledged the in-
competency of her courts to try such ca-es.
" In the correspondence which took place between the
Imperial Government and the British Legation on the
31st of October, 1843, and other dates, in consequence
of Manoel Jo:ti Madena, a Brazilian subject, who having
been taken on board the schooner Tartaruga, said to
have been engaged in illicit trade, was detained on board
the said schooner and sent to the Cape of Good Hope,
the Minister of her Britannic Majesty at this court de-
clared, in a note dated the 12th of November of the same
year, that this individual, as well as others found on
board the Tartaruga, had been sent to the Cape of Good
Hope, because their evidence might be necessary upon
the trial of the vessel in the Vice-Admiralty Court, to
prove acts of piracy ; and, in fact, as soon as the vessel
was adjudicated Madena and the other prisoners re-
turned to this country, as is proved by the official cor-
respondence above-named.

That this is the only interpretation which can be
given to the treaty of the 23d of November,lB26, is fur-
ther proved by comparing the aforesaid art. 4 with the
treaties which England has concluded with other na-
tions.

Iconsulttuhol
ie h the
24th of May, 8
on
t treatieshe
with Bo-
liviawi th the
Argentineßepsth of September, 1840, additional articles
the easy
2
ton is
under the same date and acts of instruments annexed ;
with Chili on the 19th January, 1839, additional articles
under the same date and acts of instruments annexed ;
with Hayti on the 23d of December, 1839 ; with Mexico
on the 24th of February, 1841, additional articles under
the same date ; with Texas on the 16th of November,
1841, acts of instruments and declaration, signed at
Washington on the 16th of February, 1844 ; with Uru-
guay on the 13th of June, 1839, additional articles under
the same date and acts of instruments annexed ; and
with Venezuela on the 15th of March, 1839.
It is manifestly evident in every one of these treaties
that both the high contracting Powers engage to con-
cert and establish, by means of conventions, the details
of the measures necessary for enforcing immediately
and reciprocally, in accordance with the legislative enact-
Powers, the law of
Applicable to the traffic,
pmieranct;,owt
,itlhicehrNevsipile
hceonintraadeetina
in as far as regards the vessels and subjects of each
country.
" If the fact of the traffic being considered piracy
were sufficient to enable the nations by whose vessels
the captures Isere made, to try the vessels and persons
by their own tribunals, it would be needless either that
the traffic should be declared piracy in the afore. named
treaties, or that the two contracting Powers be bound to
enact special laws for the punishment of such of their
subjects or citizens as may be engaged in the traffic.
" If the mere declaration that the slave trade is
piracy did not deprive Brazilian subjects and their pro-
perty of the right of being tried by the authorities of
their own country, so likewise their vessels were not
liable to be visited, searched, and captured by British
cruisers.
" It has already been shown that the law of nations
does not recognise, in time of peace, the right of visit
and search on the high seas. The British tribunals have
at various times recognised this principle, as occurred in
case of the French vessel Louis, captured in the year
1820, on the coast of Africa for being engaged in the