PORTUGUESE SLAVERY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In the article in your last issue entitled "Portuguese Slavery," the highly esteemed writer of it is misled by an incident recorded in the White Paper "Africa, No. 2, 1913," into incorrectly laying the charge on the "Society of Friends" that they made use of the word " atrocities " in a letter to the Foreign Office, which they afterwards had to withdraw. Now the official at the Foreign Office who edited that paper ought to have known from the dating and whole appearance of the letter in question that it was in no sense an official letter from the Society of Friends. It was the product of one small meeting of that body which appears to have been misinformed by one or more of its members, and was in no sense a letter from the Society of Friends, which, on the subject of Portuguese Slavery, is officially represented by its Anti- slavery Committee, of which I am the honorary secretary. The small meeting in question is little accustomed to deal with the subject of slavery in the Portuguese colonies, and in the case in question did make use of a word which they had subsequently to withdraw. Surely that was no reason why the burden of the mistake should have been saddled on the whole body of the Society, which has always been careful to speak with caution and accuracy, and whose actions in the past in connexion with the hateful institution of slavery have always been directed, not without success, to the removal of this sin against our common humanity, and with which object we are now working, in common with yourself, for the removal of that long-standing stain on the reputation of the Portuguese
/nation and Government.—I am, Sir, &e., E. W. Bacence. Duvals, Grays, Essex.
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