The independent. (Harrisonburg, La.) 1853-18??, 1857-12-23

determination, revived on their own account
the slave trade with Cuba, where the price
of slaves owing to the enormously increas-
ing value Of sugar, had greatly risen. Their
| operations, and the expectation of French
demand brought down on the Blight whole
host to use Consul Campbelfs expressive
language, of bearded unwashed Spaniards,
Portuguese, and Americans; reused, as we
have seen, the chiefs of Abeokuta and the
interior to slave-hunting and kidnapping
and at once as the correspondence before lis
repeats over again, seriously diminished the
quantity of produce collected for expectation
American slave ship after American slave
ship appeared in the Blight, and it was an
nounced that N. Regis had chartered four
large steamers for his share in the traffic.
This announcement aroused the attention Of
Consul Campbell, as yet in ignorance Of the
contract, but his suspicious were lulled by
an assurance that the vessel so chartered
were intended for the postal service of the
French government. The statement soon
proved utterly untrue, for, in few weeks
after it was made a large steamer called the
Stella, appeared off Whydah, with orders to
purchase and embark l 1900 negroes for the
French Indian colonies.
The effect of this demand for single ship,
with the prospect of three other similar arri-
walls, convulsed the whole Blight of Benin.
The chiefs and all their subjects deserted
legitimate trade, and English merchants en-
tangled with larger amount of property
unpaid for in the interior, were onl too hap
py to be able to contract their operations and
ship their property as fast as possible. But
it soon appeared that NJ. Regis, despite his
large African experience, had entered into a
very rash and hazardous speculation. For
the G2O head which he was to receive af-
forded him inadequate means to compete
with the slave dealers, who had the open
and unrestricted market of Cuba to supply
in the prices they respectively offered for
prime first-cass Africans. The French con-
tractors proposed flo head, their Spanish
competitors instantly rose to s1o and 20
and outbidipg the agents of the French gov
ernmeut, they got the irst-class negroes for
Cuba, while nothing but the old, the weak,
the ipfrm, and the dilapidated Africans were
left for Martinique and Guadaloupe.
Most fortunately for the imperial govern
ment the limitation of the price to be paid
the French contractor in this most descredt-
able and very deplorable enterprise has, we
learn, prevented the Stella obtaining her full
compliment of 1900 Africans in the Blight Of
Benin; and that ship had at the latest dates
sailed with several hundreds on board for the
river Gaboon, there, it is greatly to be feared,
to complete the number she can convey to
the West Indies. This failure at Whydah
will, we say, be most fortunate occurrence
for The French government, if it only teach
es them the low commercial lesson that in a
trade so wicked, and abominable as this traf-
fic in Africans, no government contractors
can compete with the remorseless and estab-
lished slave Dealers who buy in Africa to
sell again in Cuba. And as, since the con-
tract was formed, sugar has fallen $40 ton
in value, let MS earnestly hope that the miser-
able and mistaken inducement in which the
contract no doubt originated has disappear
ed, and that the contract itself will be at once
terminated.
But sorry are we to say it, the truth must
be plainly told, that the mischief arising out
of this French enterprise will not cease with
VIC leIuiilidIioH VI tiit'1 CoulidCt, eFcH siouIu
the French Government be wise and humane
enough to put an end to it. The great OBJ
stacle to the success of the ant-save trade
policy of England lies in the state of public
opinion on the subject Of the traffic in Spain,
Portugal, Cuba, and in some portions of the
United States. And this unexpected pro-
ceeding of the French Government will
strengthen and confirm their adverse opinion,
will be accepted as conveying the moral
sanction to the slave trade OF the Govern
ment of the French empire, and will show
to the world that the policy of France is, on
this question, no longer the policy Of Eng
land.