The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-06-03

operation was one not of emigration, but of
commerce. The Spsnisrds had outbid the
French at Whydah but here he French car
ried off the slaves crammed into barrscoons
for Spanish account. In this rivalry the
French are surely the greater delinquents.
What the Spsniards did was at all events q
breach of their own. municipal law it was the
crime of private citizens outraging the laws OF
their own country. But in the other case. it is
the French Government that, clothed with all
the moral and physical force of the foremost OF
Eurorern Powers, appeared on the west coast
of Africa to revive q slave trade which for
thirty years previously had been suppressed, so
far as regarded Frenchmen. If for no other
fault than this, the French Empire merits the
execration of Christendom.
For mark the result, even when M. Regis
failed because the Spaniards outbid him. The
King of Dahomey-who, since the blockade OF
his coast and the expulsion of his creature
Kosoca from Lagoa, had confined his annual
sacrifices of human lives to some Is or 30,
many of whom he purchased with cowries-
excited by the demand for negroes at Whydah,
has this year sailed forth in person, and at the
head of a considerable force has surprised q
town on the confines of the Yoruba country,
and carried off thence between ], 400 and 800
of its inhabitants, either to sell or to slaughter
This horrible success viii still further stimu.
late Gazo to the recovery, if that be possible,
of his former greatness, which rested on the
trade. Already, it seems, he has despatched
messengers Offering assistance to q deposed
Yoruba chief and proposing to carry war into
the Yoruba country. So that not only has the
Regis contract disturbed most seriously the
rising commerce of the Blight of Benin, and
revived the slave trade there, it also threatens
to arrest ell that internal progress on which
good men had their eyes 80 attentively fixed,
and to revolutionize large district where M.
der the auspices of England, peace, industry,
and prosperity, had to all human appearance
taken deep root.
Let US for q moment contrast these proceed.
ings with the news of English proceedings
brought by the same mails. The Government
expedition still remained near Rabbah, waiting
patiently for the arrival of another steamer up
the Niger. There they saw two great native
caravans, one going to, the other coming from,
Illorin. One of these caravans could not, it is
said, have contained fewer than 5000 persons,
and upwards of 1000 beasts of burden. The
caravan on its way to Illorin carried immense
quantities of native produce; that returning
from Illorin was laden with European goods
and in the latter was an Arab who had seen
the English troops at STEAMBOAT going to fight
the Russians, and who had visited Gibraltar
and other places in the Mediterranean. Here
surely We have evidence that the interior of AT
rica--ef negro lands not a land of despair
such as the French and our West Indians pic.
ture it, but q garden Of hopefulness. From
Rabbsh (which is to be rebuilt) line of com.
munication between the expedition had been
established with Lagos, and large supplies were
being regularly sent with perfect safety over.
land. Indeed the whole intermediate country
appeared deeply interested in rendering every
Glover. of the expedition, has gone on to Sierra
Leone to equip himself for journey from the
banks of the Niger to Egypt.
Let France, then, persist, if such be the
pleasure of the Empire, in reviving the slave
trade. The revival may temporarily retard and
interfere with our nobler policy, but it will not
arrest or terminate it. And if the comparison
be to our advantage, the blame and the shame
belong to a Government which concluded 90
wicked a contract as that formed with M. Re.
gis. Unhsppily, the Regis contract is not the
only evidence of the change of policy in tie
slave trade which distinguishes the French
Empire from the Monarchy of 1880 and the
Republic of l848. The project Of law just in.
troduced to the Corps Legislatif, enabling
French citizens to become Shareholders in for.
eign countries, is devised in the same unscru.
pulous spirit of materialism which purchases
negroes out of slave barracoons, and consigns
them to q compulsory apprenticeship for mad
equate wages in Martinique and Guadalupe.
The fact is indeed only too apparent, that
France is again rapidly becoming Pro.Sla.
very and slave-trade State, and that not by the
choice of its people, but by the will of its ruler.