An important historical event occurred in London on Monday, when
the representatives of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, signed a treaty with Great Britain, in which the four Foreign Powers agreed to adopt the English laws against the Slave-trade. Those laws declare the actual engagement in the trade to be piracy, and the embarking of capital in it to be felony. All the Powers mutually grant to each other the right of search into vessels bearing their flag. 'It has been objected, that Austria, Prussia, and Russia, who, have no direct interest in the Slave-trade or in the employ- ment of Negro slaves—two of them having no great ports, and none of them having Tropical colonies—exercise small magnanimity in declaring against it. That, however, is not the just point of view : they have given the example of the highest nations of the world in conceding a very important privilege; the right of search, as a proof that a great principle is to be preferred in international-morals to mere national punctilio ; and the voice of all-was wanted in pro- nouncing the consentaneous judgment of Europe against a traffic which but a little while ago was universally tolerated. Europe has for ever repudiated that traffic, as a barbarism unworthy of the civilized world. The temper of the United States it may be diffi- cult to count upon, and it may depend upon other things than the treaty itself: but Brazil, the other great American state which con- nives at the trade, seems half-disposed definitively to abolish it, if she receive the friendly help which her economical condition needs ; while Spain and Portugal, the helpless and the treacherous pander to others' misdoings, will not venture to defy the collective Powers of Europe. A vast stride has been made in the diplomacy touch- ing the Slave-trade. Has any progress been made towards the actual extinction of the trade ? Yes, so far as the progress of opioion 'gees ; but no further. The treaties do not touch it. - The trade' depends upon these facts. A large tract of middle America is unpeopled, or has but recently begun to be peopled; Europe has supplied capital and intelligence to open up the resources of the rich and extensive ter- ritories; Africa supplies the only race that can labour effectively in the region : a migration, therefore, from Western Africa to the 'opposite continent, it is beyond any power to arrest. .afXo multiply penalties for the Slave-trade; is only to tnake its concealment more necessary, and to aggravate its .hidden:Eorrors ; whereof not the least is the new wholesale traffic in Negro inflints, which is super- seding that in adults, because the • infants are more portable and more easily conveyed out of sight. The true way to eztinguiali
the Slave-trade is, to turn the migration, which cannot be stopped, through another channel—to supersede-the forced migration of slaves by a free migration of volunteers, similar to the migration from Europe to the Temperate zone of America. Unlimited licence for a free migration, properly regulated by good laws like our Passenger-Acts, would annihilate the Slave-trade ; which treaties with all the Governments of the globe could not do.
