nd
le philosophe examine leur histoire il ne voit pas que les Uscoques
soient les seuls criminels."

* * * * *

THE SLAVE-TRADE.[2]

[2] Fifty Days on board a Slave vessel, in 1843. By the Rev.
PASCOE GRENFELL HILL, Chaplain of H.M.S. Cleopatra.

The extraordinary change which took place in the public mind in the
beginning of the century on the subject of the slave-trade,
unquestionably justified the determination of Government to abolish a
traffic contradictory to every principle of Christianity. It had taken
twenty years to obtain this victory of justice. But we must exonerate
the mind of England from the charge of abetting this guilty traffic in
human misery. The nation had been almost wholly ignorant of its
nature. Of course, that Africans were shipped for the West Indies was
known; that, as slaves, they were liable to the severities of labour,
or the temper of masters, was also known; but in a country like
England, where every man is occupied with the concerns of public or
private life, and where the struggle for competence, if not for
existence, is often of the most trying order, great evils may occur in
the distant dependencies of the crown without receiving general notice
from the nation. It seems to have been one of the singular results of
the war with America, that the calamities of the slave-trade should
have been originally brought to the knowledge of the people. The loss
of our colonies on the mainland, naturally directed public attention
to the increased importance of the West Indian colonies. A large
proportion of our supplies for the war had been drawn from those
islands; they had become the station of powerful fleets during the
latter portion of the war; large garrisons were placed in them; the
intercourse became enlarged from a merely commercial connexion with
our ports, to a governmental connection with the empire; and the whole
machinery of the West Indian social system was brought before the eye
of England.

The result was the exposure of the cruelties which slavery entails,
and the growing resolution to clear the country of the stigma, and the
benevolent desire to relieve a race of beings, who, however differing
in colour and clime from ourselves, were sons of the same common
blood, and objects of the same Divine mercy. The exertions of
Wilberforce, and the intelligent and benevolent men whom he associated
with himself in this great cause, were