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name of James Martin, who died at Clifton, near Bristol, in Sept. 1813, and was communicated by the Rev. John Greig, Worcester, a member of this Institution:

Martin informed Mr. Greig, that he recollected living very happily with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, in a small town in Africa ; that one night a great number of people came from a distance, and surprised and set fire to the town that he believed many of the inhabitants were taken away prisoners; and that he, (being young) was carried upon a man's shoulders, for several days together, to the sea-coast, where he was put on board a ship, taken to the West Indies, and sold to a planter;-and that, from the time he was carried off from his native town, he never saw any of his relations, nor knew what became of them. In the West Indies he was afterwards purchased by a British officer, and was brought by him to England.

Mr. Greig understanding that Martin kept some money, which he had saved from his wages as a servant, in an insecure place, advised him to invest it in the public funds; and, as he had no relations in this country to claim the property after his death, in case of his dying intestate, Mr. Greig suggested to him the propriety of making a will, and, after explaining to him the nature of the African Institution, advised him to leave his little property to this Society. He said he would consider of it; and soon after inquired of Mr. Greig, whether there was any Society for building churches in Africa. Upon being told of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, he said he should like to leave his money equally between that Society and the African Institution. His will was drawn and executed accordingly, and his bequest has since been received.'

We find in the Ninth Report a full account of the negociations and treaties formed by our Government on the subject of the slave-trade; and of the efforts of our plenipotentiaries, when they could not obtain the consent of France and Spain to its instantaneous abolition, to prescribe certain limits to which the trade should be confined for the respective periods of five and eight years. Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, it is observed, continued to press on the French government the restriction of its slave-trade to the south of the Line; and they at length so far succeeded as to procure an injunction to be issued by the Minister of the Marine, prohibiting the trade to the north of Cape Formosa, a point situated at about the fourth degree of north latitude. For a proof of the pertinacity of France on the subject of the slave-trade, a stronger evidence cannot be afforded than the fact here adduced by the Directors of the African Institution: viz. that, though Great Britain offered to cede to France an island in the West Indies, on condition that she would agree to an immediate abolition, the offer was declined. As to Spain, it is hoped that she will agree to make

the

the Equator the northern instead of the southern boundary of the slave-trade. Damion ever bus prén

Among other particular causes of regret, der n yoksam 14 • The Directors have to lament the continuance of a very large slave-trade in the islands of France and Bourbon. They stated last year an opinion respecting the magnitude of this trade; and documents subsequently received, on which they can place reliance, amply prove that their statement was far below the truth; and that a trade to a great extent, and attended with many aggravating circumstances, has been carried on there. The planters, and other inhabitants of those colonies, have also shewn a strong disposition to contravene the abolition laws, and to evade, or resist, their execution by the authorised officers of the British Government and this disposition, instead of being repressed by the judicial authorities existing there under the French constitution, appears to have been countenanced, if not sanctioned by them.'

A flagrant instance of the slave-trade still carried on to t the islands of France and Bourbon, and a specimen of the mode of procuring slaves for the supply of those islands, will be found in the following documents:

• Statement of a Case of Slave Trading lately detected at the Isles of France and Bourbon.

About the latter end of October, 1814, a schooner, named the Aglae, was captured off Port Louis, in the Isle of France, by the Magnet government schooner, Captain Vine, after a chace of several hours. In the hold of the Aglae were discovered more than 150 negroes, whom it was intended to land in that colony during the night. From the testimony of an eye-witness it appears, that on board this vessel, of the registered burthen of only 40 tons, with a hold, by actual measurement, not three feet high, were stowed seventy men chained together in pairs, twenty-two young women, and about sixty ehildren, all in a state of perfect nakedness. The only care seemed to have been to pack them as close as possible; and tarpaulin was placed over tarpaulin, in order to give the vessel the appearance of being laden with a well-stowed cargo of cotton and rice. This vessel was

registered as the property of one John Salmon, who held several appointments in the Isle of France; but he absconded soon after the seizure of the vessel, and a considerable reward has been offered in vain for his apprehension. It appears that this vessel came last from the Seychelles, a cluster of small islands in the African seas; and, during the nine months preceding her capture, had made many slavetrading expeditions. When captured, there were but three bags of rice remaining on board: so that if the voyage had been retarded by stress of weather, or by the calms which frequently prevail in those latitudes, the consequences must have been dreadful.

Specimen of the Mode of procuring Slaves for the Supply of the Isles of France and Bourbon.

The following is the case of a Madagascar girl, named Frances, reseued from slavery in the Isle of France, and recently brought to

this country by Mrs. Power, the wife of the gentleman mentioned in the body of the Report.

It appears from the testimony of this girl, that she was born in the island of Madagascar, of free parents; that she lost her father when quite an infant, and that her mother gained a livelihood by manufacturing the blue petticoats and shirts usually worn by the natives of Madagascar. When about nine years of age, she was at play in the fields with three other children. They were all suddenly seized by the black servants of a Frenchman resident in Tamatave, the chief town of Madagascar. After having been confined separately for a considerable time, they were put on board a vessel with several others. She says they were three months at sea, waiting for a favourable opportunity to land the cargo of slaves without being discovered. In the mean time, the vessel was observed by a British sloop of war, and, being chased, captured, and carried into Port Louis, and there condemned, the slaves were removed to the Custom-house, where she was clothed. She was thence taken into the service of Mr. Power's family.'

In both of these Reports, the Directors complain of the embarrassment experienced in the disposal of the captured negroes. We cannot afford our readers a clearer view of what has hitherto been done in this business, than by copying the last annual official return made to the Governor of Sierra Leone.

• General Statement of the Disposal of the captured Negroes received into the Colony of Sierra Leone, to the 9th July, 1814.

Total Number received

Settled in the colony, viz. as free labourers, carpenters,
sawyers, masons, blacksmiths, &c.; living in the mountains
on their farms; the girls at school; the women married in
the Royal African Corps, &c.

Entered into his Majesty's land service, men and boys
Women married to the soldiers at the recruiting depôt
Left the colony, being chiefly natives of the surrounding
Timmanee, Mandingo, Bullom, and Soosoo countries
Apprentices whose indentures are in force at the present
Entered into his Majesty's navy

Apprentices out of the colony

Living as servants at Goree

At the Lancasterian school in England

5925

2757 1861

65

419

time

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Total 5925

K. MACAULAY,

Stolen from the colony, two to the Havannah and one to the
Kroo country

Died; chiefly of the scurvy and dropsy, caught on board

Sierra Leone, 9th July, 1814.

Sup, captured Negroes.'

Since Africans, in spite of all our vigilance, continue to be crouded into slave-ships and transported across the Atlantic, and since slavery still exists in our islands, it has been one of the objects of the Directors of this Institution, as they cannot break the chain of the slave, at least to soften his lot. They have been active, 1st, in discovering individual acts of tyranny and oppression, for the purpose of exposing and punishing the authors; 2dly, they. have offered suggestions for the amelioration of the slaves in the colonies, and of the law as it relates to them; and, in the last place, they have presented accounts of cases in which the abolition-acts are supposed to have been violated. Under the first of these heads, various instances of the cruelty of planters to their slaves, especially in the smaller islands, have been authentically reported to the Directors, who do not fail to mark such acts of atrocity with their indignant condemnation; yet it is mortifying to reflect how deeply rooted this evil is in the very constitution of West Indian society. The observations here made afford a full view of the case:

They who have reflected, with a view to any practical purpose, on the means of correcting this unnatural state of society, will not need to be told that it is a subject replete with difficulty. When the limited influence and authority of those who are anxious to effect such reformations are contrasted with the unbounded power, legislative and domestic, of the men who suppose themselves interested in resisting them, it is plain that little could be hoped from a direct and open contest with those by whom the laws of the colonies are enacted and administered. When it is further recollected how much the constitutional authority of the executive government is narrowed by the rights asserted by the councils and assemblies of the islands, and in SO many instances conceded to them; with what caution that authority is and must always be exerted; by what various conflicting representations truth may be obscured, where the subjects of complaint have arisen at so great a distance; how incessantly, within the bounds of the colonies themselves, the prejudices of colour are inflamed by education and custom; and with what sensitive jealousy every plan of reform is watched by those who have embarked their wealth in WestIndian securities and speculation; it will not be thought wonderful that the progress of improvement in those islands should be very tardy, and that the Directors have hesitated to propose any measures for the adoption of the British Parliament, till they could thoroughly investi gate a question so abounding in hazardous alternatives.

In the mean time, they have not been negligent in lending such assistance as has been in their power towards the correction of those individual abuses which have been communicated to them; and they are happy to state, that, in several instances, the representations they have made to his Majesty's ministers have been attended with salutary consequences,?

One point in favour of the man of colour has been determined in our colonial courts. Formerly, it was a settled principle

"that

"that a black man is to be reputed to be a slave until the contrary is proved;" now, however, by the generous exertions of Mr.. Keane, a formal decision has been made in the Court of King's Bench, in the island of St. Vincent, that this presumption against freedom and in favour of slavery was not warranted by law.' It must afford every humane reader extreme satisfaction to observe the assiduity which this board of philanthropists has displayed in supplying the wants of the Africans; by sending them negro-schoolmasters, previously educated in the Lancasterian school in the Borough-Road, with school-books; and by engaging a medical gentleman to go with vaccine matter to Sierra Leone; transmitting also 45,000 pieces of copper-money, stamped with an appropriate device.

On the subject of attempting farther discoveries in the interior of Africa, nothing more is said in this Report than to suggest that a person or persons may be found on the coast fitly qualified for the conduct of such a journey; and to recommend this matter to the patronage of Government, the funds of the Institution being quite inadequate to such an undertaking.

When we examine these Reports, together with the numerous documents which are to be found in the Appendices, and when we perceive how diligently every species of evidence relative to slavery and the slave-trade is collected, we think that they are highly honourable to the Institution itself, and must give pleasure to all those who have minds imbued with the principles. of the Christian religion.

ART. VIII. Lives of Caius Asinius Pollio, Marcus Terentius Varro, and Cneius Cornelius Gallus. With Notes and Illustrations. By the Reverend E. Berwick. Crown 8vo. pp. 178. Boards. Triphook. 1814.

IN

the

N the minute and studied account which we gave of Mr. Berwick's former publications in vol. lxxiii. p. 277., we ventured, on original grounds of investigation, totally to dissent from his representation of the character of Messala. Corvinus; and much to innovate on the received hypothesis concerning Apollonius of Tyana. We have no similar protest to file against the new biographies now before us; on t contrary, they appear to us to describe with equity the persons delineated; and, as in solidity of judgment, so in the arts of composition, we here discern a marked increase of skill, a growth towards maturity. The disposition of the incidents is more natural and easy, the references are more numerous and precise, and the dimensions of the parts are better proportioned

to

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