Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-07-26
English Opinion Concerning the American
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Slave Trade.
The London STAR the special organ of the
liberal party in England, defends the United
States Government from completely in the
slave-trade, charged by the Times, and ther
turns upon the British Government with
some facts which the Times ought to have
meditated and to have made some allow.
ance for:
But then England is accused of insincerity
and hypocrisy in this question, and, in the
United States Senate, language is uttered
which had better have been left uuspoken.
Yet it is not for us too warmly to resent it.
of the unselfishness, sincerity, and pure hui
manity of the British people on this subject
no man, we believe, either in Europe or
America, entertains a shadow of doubt. But
the arrangements under which our African
squadron acts, together with other circum-
stances, are such as not unnaturally suggest
the possibility of other motives in the Gov
ernment than the desire to suppress the trade
simply. When it is pointed out that those
negroes which are captured by British cruis-
ers are not returned to Africa, but are turned
on the contrary to valuable use for the in
terests of British Colonies, what have we to
answer
1t is notorious to all the world that labor
is so much wanted in Jamaica that the plant
ers there would be willing and anxious to
revive the slave trade if they could and are
actually carrying on trade in coolies, which
is a slave trade under another name. Well.
why should the British Government expose
itself to Misrepresentation by taking captured
negroes to Jamaica? An American, whose
nation can not possibly derive any advantage
from capturing slave ships and their cargoes,
may be allowed to ask whether the negroes
taken by the British cruisers are captured for
the purpose of suppressing the slave trade,
or of supplying the wants of the British West
India planters2 As the British officers receive
G5 q head for all captured, too, it is evident
that it is their interest rather to allow cargoes
to be shipped than to prevent the slavers
from taking them on board; but the chief blot
in the arrangement is the carrying of them
to British possessions where labor is wanted,
and where they are not landed as freemen,
but under obligations to work. Add to this
that the British Government, to which Spain
has bound herself over and over again TO put
down the trade to Cuba and which has ac-
tually paid Spain immense sums of money as
a consideration for such suppression, does
nothing TO exact the fulfllment of this duty
from the court of Madrid. This is unac-
countable.
The trade is carried on notoriously with
the sanction of Spain, the great functonaries
of whose government and members of whose
royal family, make immense fortunes out of
it. Why does not the British Government
insist on the execution of this treaty. By
doing SO it would be doing more to end the
trade in African slaves than can be accom-
plished by the united exertions of the British
and United States squadrons united; but if
insurmountable obstacles, of which we know
nothing, interpose in the way of this why
not cease appropriating the captured negroes
to our own use, and so remove from our ar
rangements that which leaves our motives
naturally open to the suspicion of those to
whom thoughtless or mischievous section
of our press and politicians never omit an
opportunity of unjustifably denouncing as
favorable to the slave trader