The daily republic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1853-1853, 1853-08-09
WASHINGTON:
TUESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 9, 1853.
Why cannot the slave Trade be Abo-
liShed4

Why cannot the Slave Trade be AbO-
lished?
II is a remarkable result of philanthropy that
it sometimes enhances the very evil it was in
tended to arrest. When England used to stlP-
ulate by treaty for the asiento contract, the
Bristol OF London SLAYER was roomy and well !.
ventilated vessel, fitted TO transport human cat
tie across the ocean with the smallest per cent
age Of loss; but since the light of conversion
has displayed the cruel iniquities of the trade
to her purified vision, and she has been en-
gagged with voluntary ocean police in chasing
slavers and watching the coast of Africa, the
shameful traffic has assumed new horrors, and
seems as far from having terminated as ever.
AS this branch of the preventive service is a
very interesting exercise of political philan-
thropy we will describe it.
The African squadron goes forth to patrol
the ocean; it requires peaceful traders to show
their papers, and searches with great zeal
schooners laden with the onions Of Springfield.
or the Goldfish of the Canadas. Having reached
the slave coast, il commences cruising in ear
nest; but the slave trade has accommodated
itself to the eXigencies. The slave ships
are built for speed, without any regard to
the comfort of their wretched freight. They
register at one port, are transferred at anO-
Their, and take in their surreptilious stores
where least liable to be suspected. Their
confederates on shore, upon concerted
signal, bring the live cargo to the coast, and run
them, together with small supply of water, on
board the vessel Immediately sails, and be-
ing, we are ashamed to say, often built in Bal
timore, and sometimes commanded by English
men, or even by the constituents Of Messrs
HALE, SEWARD, or SMITH, it is of course i'm
possible to capture them. Therefore, when
the British cruiser returns to the slave-ground
she finds nothing but the dull, low coast-line,
with the stagnant streams, the mangrove trees,
and mosquitoes, crocodiles, and coast fevers,
while away out at sea the horizon line of the
water and sky is bright and unbroken by a
sail and when the doughty British officer,
whose royal mistress is the proprietress Of
all that wide domain, climbs up by the man
ropes after dinner, he is generally too full Of
Otard and Port to see very far through any
glass except wine-glass, and he could no,
perhaps with one of DoLLAND's best telescopes
see the topsail from the quarterback; nor would
he take the word of any subordinate, seeing
that, since the days of BRApDocK and DACREs
British officer can learn nothing from any
one except his superiOrs. Then an entry is
made to the effect that the coast is quiet and
no sail in sight; and soon the surgeon reports
. hot
der to the coast fever, and had better be thrown
overheard as soon as the chaplain can slip on
his cassock and the boatswain get ready the
gratings. In the mean time the officer laws
down to take what the cockneys POLITICALLY term
|'a snooze.' -
We pass like a novelist to the deck of the
invisible SLAYER. The horrors of the scene may
be inferred from the circumstances under which
the trade is conducted; hundreds of wretches
are crammed between decks of little more than
three feet in height, with far less regard to
their animal ease than is shown to carload
of hogs. The heat of a torrid climate, the
want of air, water, and food, is manifested in
shrieks, screams, and groans. until exhaustion
occasions stupor, and the fiendish supercargo
counts for his gains those in whom the powers
of nature have been strong enough to resist such
tortures. Such are the results Of unsuccessful
philanthropy. But the inefficient efforts of the
cruisers increase the profits of those who risk
their lives in the violation of law. They give
murder in monopoly to the vilest miscreants
that disgrace humanity. The profits are Sc
great that the slaves which survive pay richly
for those that perish. The very evil intended to
be prevented is prolonged, and its shameful in
cidents of misery and mortality rendered more
poignant.
So soon as England had thus abolished
slavery and the slave trade, the interests of bel
population apparently combined with the pnrpo-
SEES of philanthropy. Itseemed her obvious poll
staples. At a later day she encouraged the
abolition of slavery in the United States for a
similar purpose, and pursued it until she found
herself unacconnlably tied to the institution by
a cotton thread, stronger however than all the
cables of commerce, and more difficult to sever
than the chains of slavery ITSELF But at the
earlier period to which we refer, having in
paroxysm of humanity chopped off her own tail,
England sci herself with anxious assiduity to
introduce the fashion universally. France had
comparatively little interest in the continu-
ance of slavery. Under the doctrines of
ANAcHARsIs CLooTz, she had extinguished
negro slavery in the blood of her own
citizens, and Hayti basked in the sunshine
OF perpetual holiday. France has, ever since
the days OF Napoleon, concentrated her polit-
cal and scientific genius in the production of
beet sugar as substitute for cane sugar, by
careful culture in the shade of prohibition
duty-by sweetening the domestic article lit
tie, and above all by adopting the recipe of the
little "MarchionessO in Dickens wbo nodo