ly repeal the treaties that pretended to abolish it, for these
exacerbate the evil a hundred fold, and are ineffectual to any one
purpose but putting money into the pockets of our men of war. The fact
is as unquestionable, as it is appalling, that all our anxious
endeavours to extinguish the Foreign Slave Trade, have ended in making
it incomparably worse than it was before we pretended to put it down;
that owing to our efforts, there are thrice the number of slaves yearly
torn from Africa; and that wholly because of our efforts, two thirds of
these are murdered on the high seas and in the holds of the pirate
vessels.

It is said, that when these scenes were described to an indignant nation
last session of Parliament, the actual effects of this bad system were
denied, though its tendency could not be disputed.

It was averred that "no British seaman could be capable of neglecting
his duty for the sake of increasing the gains of the station." But
nothing could be more absurd than this. Can the direct and inevitable
tendency of the head-money system be doubted? Are cruisers the only men
over whom motives have no influence? Then why offer a reward at all?
When they want no stimulus to perform their duty, why tell them that if
the ship is empty, they get a hundred pounds: if laden, five thousand?
They know the rules of arithmetic;--they understand the force of
numbers. But, in truth, there is not an individual on all the coast of
Africa who will be misled by such appeals, or suffer all this to divert
them from their purpose of denouncing the system. There are persons high
in rank among the best servants of the crown, who know the facts from
their own observations, and who are ready to bear witness to the truth,
in spite of all the attempts that have been made to silence them.

The other great object of the African Institution regarded the West
Indies. The preparation of the negroes for that freedom which was their
absolute right, and could only be withheld for an hour, on the ground of
their not being prepared for it, and therefore being better without it,
was the first thing to be accomplished. Here the friends of the
abolition, all but Mr. Stephen, suffered a great disappointment. He
alone had uniformly-foretold that the hopes held out, as it seemed very
reasonably, of better treatment resulting from the stoppage of the
supply of hands, were fallacious. All else had supposed that interest
might operate on men whom princi