eight men who had outfitted, commanded, or served on
them.

The Secretary of the Interior now resolved that the business should be
broken up in every port of the United States. He accordingly issued an
order to the several marshals of the States and districts lying upon the
seaboard, directing them to assemble at the city of New York, on the
fifteenth day of August, 1861, for the purpose of agreeing upon a system
of measures for the effectual suppression of the slave-trade in American
ports.

Burton's old Theatre, formerly dedicated to the 'sock and buskin,' and
famous during the religious revival of 1858, was now occupied by this
convention of marshals. Waiving unnecessary parliamentary usages, these
ministers of the law sat with closed doors, and discussed familiarly the
business in which they had engaged. They investigated carefully the
whole subject in its minuter details, and visited the slave brigs and
schooners which had been captured and were then lying at the Atlantic
Dock in Brooklyn. A plan of operations was concerted, by which the
marshals of the different districts should co-operate with each other in
detecting and bringing to justice persons guilty of participating in the
slave-trade. The results of this measure can not fail to be beneficial;
and, indeed, the marshals have already become so active and efficient,
that the capitalists who have maintained this branch of commerce are
actually contemplating its transferment to European ports. So much for
the convocation at Burton's Theatre. Let us now examine the principal
features of the traffic, and the practices of those by whom it is
conducted.

SLAVE DEALING IN NEW YORK.

The principal slave captains and chief officers of vessels engaged in
the slave-trade have their residences and boarding-places in the eastern
wards of the city, most of them being between James and Houston Streets.
They are known to every one who has an investment in the business.
Indeed, they are all members of a secret fraternity, having its signs,
grips, and pass-words. 'While I was in Eldridge-street jail,' said one
of them, 'Captain Loretti was captured and brought there. He did not
know any one, but I shook hands with him, and we became acquainted at
once.'

The arrival of a slave captain from one voyage is the signal for
preparation for another. Negotiations are carried on, generally in the
first-class hotels. The contracts for the City of Norfolk and several
other notori