The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1860-08-24

states Coyerumeuts on the Coolic Trade.
For some years past the world has withesseo'
without any startling exhibition Oh -"
and horror, the establishment efone VI VAC
most iniouttops trafics known to humahi's
,re mean the Coolie trade. When we oeai Al
mind the excessive selfexaltauoh W."
Europe exults ia the exuneuo'a Va s'i A.oA''
and the Nous horror win "hfen Sio"' DAT
tain nrofesses TO view the trade ia eoony pa
~. who are themselves ensiaved AT home to
the most cruel and savage tyrants, we can
s,.rcely realize the possibility of the fact that
these very nations have inaugurated the
wholesale kidnappsag Of white men from thsir
homes. their families, and all that they hold
dear. 10 bondage so exhausting that they rarely
survive its horrors, and in many cases rejoice
20 escape from it by suicide. The Coolies, az
they are called, are in general Chinese labor
ers, a class who perform the heavy manual
work of the cities, and who answer TO the por-
ters. draynien, ~stevedores, &c, in English
cities. On the average, they are quite as civil
lied and refined as the same class in the Eng
lsh seaports; they are not unfrequently men
OF education; they are often married men,
with families dependent upon them for sup
port; they are as free, personally, as any Bril-
ton in the weird, and have as lively an appre-
citation of freedom. The Coolie trade processes
to be on the part of these men voluntary
emigration, aided by European agents. VINO
benevolently place vessels at their disposai, 10
enable them to reach the country 10 wnich
they desire 20 emigrate, only requiring from
then, as A mere formality, of course, 10 sign
certain papers binding them TO eight years OF
service 70 their future masters. The truth,
however. is that, under these professions, by
traud and violence, multtudes of the inhabi-
SAINTS OF China are every year beguiled and
kidnapped from their native land 10 slavery
in distant regions Of the earth so severe that
few of Ihem survive the eight years CT appren-
ticeship We noticed lately in another column
the fact shat there are now twenty thousand
Chinese Coolies in Peru, with an increasing de.
mand, who sold for four hundred dollars each
having cost the trader only thiriy-fve dollars
10 land each man on the coast OF course, with
such enormous profits, inscriptions traders
will not be fas .idious in their means of getting
possession OF Cinnamon, and We are not sur
pTised to hear that in all the Chinese cities tbe
greatest excitement has been aroused by this
Inhuman traffic against all foreigners, nor that
often the Coolies burst open the matches of the
shipin which they are imprisoned like SO many
cattle. and take summary vengeance upon the
kidnappers.
Bearing in mind these facts, and the august
and dignified manner in which Great Britain
processes TO be the champion of oppressed hu-
mainly in all parts of the globe. We shall be
better able to appreciate the sublime and I'M
blushing audacity with which Lord JOHN
RUSSELL gravely and deliberately proposes to
this Government and to the world the subs I'll
tuts OF the white Coolie traffic for the African
slave trade! The terms in which Mr.. TRES
CorT, the acting American Secretary of State
has met the proposition, are both explicit and
emphatic. Nor can the President" says Mr..
PRESCOTT, share in the anticipation of Her
Britannia Majesty's Government that the
Coolie trade can be put on any such footing as
will relieve il of those features of fraud and
violence which render the details of its prose-
cution scarcely less horrible than those of the
Middle Passage, and he is of opinion that il
would exert most deleterious influence upon
every portion of this country to import into
it Chinese Coolies as laborers. In the States
where the institution OF domestic slavery ex-
lists these heather Coolies would demoralize
the peaceful content ted and orderly slaves, very
many OF whom are sincere Christians, and in
the free States they would be brought into
competition with our own respectable and
industrious laborers, whether OF native or
foreign birth, who constitute SO large por-
ton of our best citizens"
We trust that this reply will silence, at
least for a time, the impertinent and inter-
meddling oificiousness Of the British govern
ment, which alone is responsible for the very
trade upon the African Coast which it now
processes 10 hold in utter horror, and seeks 10
establish upon its ruins another, infinitely
more inhuman and atrocious. But it is time
that the United States ceased to stand upon
the defensive on this subject. She ought no
longer to allow herself 10 be male a catspaw
of by Great Britain, in keeping up, at great
expense and loss of life, squadron upon the
African Coast. The Coolie proposition Of the
British government is enough of itself TO ex-
pose the perfect hollow neartedness and hy-
pocrisy of British philanthropy upon this
subject The records of the world might he
searched in vain for parallel to the curses of
both soul and body which, in the opium and
Coolie trade, Great Britain has brought upon
the most popnlons Empire of modern times |
whilst, atthe same she is so overflow.
ingwith humanity and sensiblity that the pres.
ence in her Statistical Congress of represen-
tatiye of country in which the ligh ter form
of human servitude ever known to mortal
men exists. brings down gross insult which
is applauded by all present, including the
second highest person in the realm. We owe
no concessions 10 such country, and we are
better able 10 Withstand her open hostility
than her secret arts.
Watching Him.
gentleman of our city, who returned from
IN in h. of ha Adria tic he