The Statesman.
London, England, 1809-07-07 00:00:00

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GO.VMERCE.

COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSIs WITH AFRICA.

Ix the infancy of the Arts, the various pro.
ductions of human ingenuity mere so generally
dependant on the exertion of mere manual labour
—that there never could be reason to apprehend
inconvenience from x redundancy of those pro.
ductions which minister to the wants and comforts
of mankind ; but it is a fact too notorious to be
denied, that the ingenious and universal application
of machinery in this kingdom in our various ma.
nitfactures —has at length created a pea Per of pro.
(lacing so indefinite—that nothing but a perpetual
increase of consumption can enable oar marsuface
turers to suppoo t (hit immense body of people,
who are absolutely precluded from obtaining sub.
sistence by any other species of industry. New
markets are the perpetual objects of commercial
research, and in the great Continents of Asia,
America, and Africa, they have been principally
sought. Although we are very ignorant of many
parts of the interior of Asia, as well as of South
America, our knowledge of those quarters of the
globe greatly surpasses that which we possess ro.
specting Africa, of which the climate, the preju.
dices of the.htolianimedans (who form so large a
proportion of its population) and the utter
ignorance of Europeans of African Arabic, the
universal language of that Great Continent, have
hitherto kept us in profound ignorance. To the
progress of European travellers, innumerable ob.
stades have been opposed—obstacles indeed in.
surmountable, when it is considered milder what
circumstances their jonrnics have been undertaken.
The bigotry and prejudice of the Africans exceed
those of any other nation ; and yet there have
been found men who, in defiance of these great
obstacles to human inquiry, hare attempted to
penetrate into the heart of Africa—itt the dress
of an European—which is not only in itself
prima foci:: disgusting to all Mahometans, be.
ing by them considered as indecent; but at the
same time proclaims that difference of religious
sentiment which is an almost insuperable barrier to
the progress of the traveller, who, at every step,
finds himself opposed, insulted, and attacked....
When to this consideration is added that of the
ignorance of the European traveller of African
Arabic, it is much _mere surprising that European
travellers should have penetrated so far as they
have done into Africa than that they should have
hitherto been unsuccessful in the great objects of
their inquiries.--The same consideratio.is naturally
occur in contemplating the subject of our commcr.
cial relations with many of those African States,
whose rulers we are in the habit of considering as
barbarians...amongst %whom the Monarch on the
Throne of Marocco is not the least conspicuous.
But this opinion,although probably inseam respects
well founded, is, for the most part, the result of
ignorance;--the important truth is, that all our
imfornsation is derived either from Consols or Am-
bassadors—in general alike ignorant of the lea.
guage, religion, and manners of the people they
describe.

We hare been Icd to these reflections by the
perusal of a Work recently published by a Gentle-
man who has been resident many years in the do.
minion of the Emperor of Marocco—which con-
tains an account at once so clear, so candid, so
convincing, and so extraordinary, of the real
causes of our restrained intercourse with the polls
of the Empirb of Maroccot that we do not
hesitate to lay before our readers genial front
this Work, in the persuasion that they will be
round peculiarly interesting. In the first Extract
will be seen, a very clear illustration of the inat-
tention and defective policy of Great Britain to bcr
true commercial interests. And in the second, a
circumstroce is narrated, which must strike every
relecting mind with astonishment—the total
neglect of a letter• written by a Monarch, whose
friendship and good-will are universally admitted
to be imminently important to this country.