15 APRIL 1843, Page 35

The West Indies and Mauritius are at present in a

condition which bears considerable analogy to that of the Lowlands of Scotland about the time that David Dale established the cotton-mills of New Lanark. There is a class of landed proprietors with wofully precarious in- comes. There is a class of shopkeepers and small proprietors in com- fortable circumstances, but whose descendants run the risk, in the neat generation at furthest, of being reduced to a necessitous condition. There are natural productions in abundance, which, by the aid of capital and labour, may be worked up with great profit ; and the calling of these resources into play will increase the value of the property of the great landowners, and render their incomes steady, and secure the families of the shopkeeping and small proprietary class in the decent affluence they now enjoy. Capital the Sugar Colonies can procure readily from this country in any quantity, as soon as they can show that they have the means of turning it to account-in other words, that they have the labour. The labour at this moment they have not-that is clear : how are they to get it ?

The Scotch manufactures were created at first by English capital. the same fashion ? beyond a doubt, be made cheaper in our sugar countries than slave- To suit the purposes of the Sugar Colonies, the labourers must be of labour in any other.

Tropical race. OW-door bodily labour cannot be efficiently din- Continuous labour is the sole want of the British Sugar Colonies* charged in those climates by the natives of colder climates, without a the struggle of competition with other sugar colonies : in every other wanton expenditure of health and life. The immigrants must be of the respect they are already either on a par with any other sugar countries labouring class. The immigration of free Blacks from the United States in the world, or have the advantage of them. In climate, they are of North America, however promising, was founda failure in so far as in- equal ; in fertility, (as has been shown in a preceding page) they are creasing the supply of available field-labour was concerned. The superior equal ; in the facility with which they can command capital, if once intelligence of these immigrants ranked them with the middle or shop- put in possession of an adequate supply of labour, far better off; in keeping class ; and they almost uniformly contrived in a short time to the skill and enterprise of their merchants, in the assiduity and intel- raise themselves into this class, already abundantly numerous. What ligence of the superintendents and managers of their agricultural and is wanted is a sufficient number of some Tropical race, who shall stand manufacturing processes, far better off ; in their possession of the in a similar relation to the shopkeeping Negroes of our Sugar Colonies, best and most improved machinery, fax in advance of any of their that the poor, hardy, and industrious Highlanders and Irishmen did to rivals. the corresponding class in Scotland. The country from which these Give them but the command of adequate labour, and they will emigrants come must be near enough to render the cost of transporting need no protection to strengthen them for the peaceful contest ; them to the colonies not exorbitantly high, and to render it easy for the cry for protection from foreign competition will be converted into them to return home if dissatisfied with their new situation. The con- the demand for hastening the abolition of restrictions on commerce in dition of these labourers in their own country must be such that the foreign countries by setting the example at home. By means of the rank and condition of labourers shall for some years content them, or African race for the labouring class, the West Indies can be made the shall enable them, by dint of industry and exertion, to return to their Great Britain of the Torrid Zone ; whose climate has hitherto defied the

cheapness of transport and the facilities of return. denied to the whole of that wide belt on the globe.

The material condition of the West Indian labourer is such as to On this process depends the future of the Negro race. The per- attract the Africans, if once authentically made known, even to those sonal freedom granted to a few in other countries is unaccompanied by who are but little adventurous The rate of labourers' wages at Sierra an admission to social and political equality. In our West Indian Leone and on the Gold Coast averages from 2d. to 4d. per diem. The colonies alone has the Negro a chance of being absorbed into the high average rate of wages in our West India colonies is—in Trinidad, civilization of Christian Europe ; and only from the Negro race, thus Guiana, and Jamaica, from Is. 6d. to 2s. per diem ; in Antigua and elevated, can civilization be spread to the Negroes of Africa. We Barbados, 9d. or 10d. In addition to the money-wages, the shall show that actual experiment has already proved the possibility. labourers at present have allowances, and plantation-grounds,

which they can cultivate for themselves at their leisure-hours ; 2. PROGRESS OF THE EXPERIMENT TO SUPPLY THE Barrisn SUGAR and under any circumstances they must obtain the equivalents of those COLONIES WITH FREE LABOUR BY IMMIGRATION. advantages. Some tribes in Africa—the Kroomen, for instance—have The proposal to furnish the British Sugar Colonies with an adequate already shown that such inducements have influence over them. The supply of free labour by means of immigration was a necessary con- rate of wages among the native labourers in British India is not much sequence of the act of Emancipation. It was evident that a large if any higher than that which prevails in the parts of Africa we have portion of the prtedial slaves would, upon acquiring freedom, withdraw mentioned ; and certain castes of the natives have for many years been from agricultural work, and that without an accession of new hands accustomed to emigrate temporarily in pursuit of fortune. the cultivation of the colonies could not be maintained. This prospect The effect of the immigration of free labourers from other countries was rendered darker by an order in Council, passed in 1838, by which into the Sugar Colonies will be to increase the quantity and efficiency all engagements entered into for service were declared to be void in of labour in a far greater ratio than their numbers. It has already been the Crown Colonies unless contracted " within the limits and upon the observed, that when the labourers born in the Sugar Colonies see that and of the colony where they were to be performed." Under this if they refuse to work enough themselves others may supply their place, aw, the planters were precluded from hiring any other labourers than they labour more steadily. In order to diminish the cost and increase those who happened to be already settled on the spot ; and on the the production of sugar—in other words, to increase the productive- other hand, the enfranchised slaves, who were disposed to work, en- mess and trade of the Sugar Colonies—operations must be carried joyed a monopoly of employment. It has been since modified in so on upon a large scale ; and for that purpose a considerably increased far as to except engagements made in Europe and North America.

population will be required. But merely to restore the islands Guiana and Trinidad, possessing vast tracts of virgin-land, with a de- to the state in which they were before Emancipation, would require a ficient population, felt most severely the operation of this restriction, comparatively small augmentation. For that purpose, it is not so much and naturally made the first efforts to counteract it. An ordinance a great number of labourers, nor under any circumstances is it a was passed by the Governor in Council, on the 24th November great reduction of wages, that is required; but it is the power of corn- 1838, "for facilitating the immigration into this colony of 'a-

mending continuous labour. bourers accustomed to agriculture and inured to a Tropical climate."

The advantages and disadvantages of the British West India Colo- This was repealed and superseded by a more matured ordinance, on nies, compared with the countries of Cuba and Brazil—supposing the 21st April 1839. In the latter enactment, provision was made for the former to have a sufficient supply of continuous labour—ad- defraying the passage-money of immigrants out of the treasury, and mit of being reduced to an arithmetical calculation. The price of for insuring their health and comfort during the passage. The places newly-landed slave at Havanna is stated by Mr. Turnbull at 300 whence it was anticipated that the immigrants would come were or 350 dollars,* or, taking the dollar at 4s., from 751. to 801. The the neighbouring islands, the United States of North America, British average number of years for which these slaves are estimated to North America, Malta and the West Coast of Africa. The Queen in survive in workable condition is seven.-f- The annual cost of a slave's Council confirmed and allowed the ordinance, with the exception of labour at Havanna, therefore, is his keep (feed, clothing, housing, and that part which made provision for immigrants from the West Coast doctoring) plus an annuity for seven years which could be purchased of Africa.

for 751. or 801. There is no reason to believe that the cost in Brazil While the planters of Trinidad were thus engaged, other colonies had can be lower. The ascertained expense of a free emigrant's passage not been idle. Every attempt, however, on the part of the Legislature from Sierra Leone to Trinidad or Jamaica, is about 71. 10s. per head ; of Guiana to obtain a similar ordinance, was discountenanced ; and the and the emigrant is to have a free passage back, if he desire it, planters there being also prevented from conveying labourers to the at the end of five years. The annual cost of a freeman's labour will be colony at their individual expense, no effective arrangement could be his wages plus an annuity for five years, purchasable by the price of his accomplished for their relief. In Mauritius, a considerable number of passage, and, in the event of his claiming a free passage back at the end free labourers had previously been procured from India under in- of five years, 71. 10s. more. The prime cost of a slave's labour for dentures for five years' service : but it was alleged that a new slave- seven years, 75/. or 801., must be paid in advance ; for five years of a trade in disguise might be created; and in obedience to this outcry, the freeman's labour, 71.10s. must be paid in advance, and in an unknown emigration of the natives of India was in 1839 prohibited. proportion of cases 71. 10s. at the end of the five years. The interest On the 1st of January 1840, a remarkable paper, entitled "How to of money at the Havanna, when Mr. Turnbull wrote, was 12 per cent: Save the West Indies and Abolish Negro Slavery," (from the pen, it simple interest upon the prime cost of a Negro would give 91.t° 91. 10s. is understood, of Mr. E. G. Wakefield,) was published in the Colonial per annum. Wages, at ls. per diem, (higher than Barbados, and Gazette. This important document speaks for itself in our Appendix. lower than Jamaica,) would amount, at five working days per A scheme so comprehensive, so matured in its details, each part of week, to 13/. per annum. The cost of maintaining a slave for which fitted so admirably into the rest, giving and receiving efficiency, a year can scarcely be less than 71. ; which would cover the dif- could not fail to attract attention. It has been in a great measure the ference between the interest on the prime cost of the slave and the rallying-point of the West India interest ever since its appearance ; and expense of passages backwards and forwards. With an efficient parts of it have been in turn adopted by the successive Colonial Ad- system of emigration in our West Indian Colonies, free-labour might ministrations. An act to encourage immigration was passed by the be made in the course of a few years as cheap—looking to the price Legislature of Jamaica on the 11th December 1840; an immigration- alone—as slave-labour; and as the syktem of emigration is matured, ordinance by the Governor and Court of Policy of British Guiana on the expenses would diminish. At the same time, the civilization of the 18th January 1841; on the 8th December 1840, an order in

,, cusis, &c., P. 368' Council had sanctioned the immigration of free labourers from Sierra f Mr. Geddes's evidence before the West India Committee of the House of Leone into Trinidad ; and another order in Council, 6th October 1841, Commons, 182; p. 479. directed, "that in every case in which immigrants are imported under -The deficiency of labour in the Lowlands was supplied by the emi- Africa, by the intercouree with the West Indies, and the progress of gration of poor and industrious workmen, at first from the High- emancipation in the French Antilles and elsewhere, encouraged by lands, and, as the demand increased, from Ireland. Is there any our successful example, would undermine the slave-trade, while our quarter whence the Sugar Colonies may draw supplies of labour after cruisers would still embarrass it as much as ever. Free-labour can, the same fashion ? beyond a doubt, be made cheaper in our sugar countries than slave- To suit the purposes of the Sugar Colonies, the labourers must be of labour in any other.

native homes with what will there be esteemed a fortune. establishment of a community characterized by the energy, enter- All these conditions meet in the Negro race of Africa and in the prise, wealth, and labour-resources of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, now natives of British India. There are other Tropical races capable of multiplying on both sides of that zone. It is by combining the mind continuous labour, capable of standing the climate ; but it is un- of the Anglo-Saxon with the ductile hand of the Negro, native to the necessary to advert to them, for there can be no doubt that in region, that a conquest of the Torrid Zone can be begun in the West the two regions mentioned there exists an ample redundant popu- Indies. Their sugar and other staple produce will feel an impulse lation, to which the wages paid in our colonies for moderate paralleled only by that given to the cotton-manufactures of the Mother- labour would be affluence. And those regions are, from their position, country at the close of the last century ; and by the same means—the the best-situated with regard to our colonies, both in respect to the combination of skill, capital, and free labour in abundance, hitherto The material condition of the West Indian labourer is such as to On this process depends the future of the Negro race. The per- attract the Africans, if once authentically made known, even to those sonal freedom granted to a few in other countries is unaccompanied by who are but little adventurous The rate of labourers' wages at Sierra an admission to social and political equality. In our West Indian Leone and on the Gold Coast averages from 2d. to 4d. per diem. The colonies alone has the Negro a chance of being absorbed into the high average rate of wages in our West India colonies is—in Trinidad, civilization of Christian Europe ; and only from the Negro race, thus Guiana, and Jamaica, from Is. 6d. to 2s. per diem ; in Antigua and elevated, can civilization be spread to the Negroes of Africa. We Barbados, 9d. or 10d. In addition to the money-wages, the shall show that actual experiment has already proved the possibility. labourers at present have allowances, and plantation-grounds,

which they can cultivate for themselves at their leisure-hours ; 2. PROGRESS OF THE EXPERIMENT TO SUPPLY THE Barrisn SUGAR advantages. Some tribes in Africa—the Kroomen, for instance—have The proposal to furnish the British Sugar Colonies with an adequate already shown that such inducements have influence over them. The supply of free labour by means of immigration was a necessary con- rate of wages among the native labourers in British India is not much sequence of the act of Emancipation. It was evident that a large if any higher than that which prevails in the parts of Africa we have portion of the prtedial slaves would, upon acquiring freedom, withdraw mentioned ; and certain castes of the natives have for many years been from agricultural work, and that without an accession of new hands accustomed to emigrate temporarily in pursuit of fortune. the cultivation of the colonies could not be maintained. This prospect The effect of the immigration of free labourers from other countries was rendered darker by an order in Council, passed in 1838, by which into the Sugar Colonies will be to increase the quantity and efficiency all engagements entered into for service were declared to be void in of labour in a far greater ratio than their numbers. It has already been the Crown Colonies unless contracted " within the limits and upon the observed, that when the labourers born in the Sugar Colonies see that and of the colony where they were to be performed." Under this if they refuse to work enough themselves others may supply their place, aw, the planters were precluded from hiring any other labourers than they labour more steadily. In order to diminish the cost and increase those who happened to be already settled on the spot ; and on the the production of sugar—in other words, to increase the productive- other hand, the enfranchised slaves, who were disposed to work, en- mess and trade of the Sugar Colonies—operations must be carried joyed a monopoly of employment. It has been since modified in so on upon a large scale ; and for that purpose a considerably increased far as to except engagements made in Europe and North America.

mending continuous labour. bourers accustomed to agriculture and inured to a Tropical climate."

the provisions of the above-recited ordinance, one-third at least of such immigrants, shall consist of females." This provision, although omitted by Mr. Wakefield in his programme, is in reality adopted, though incompletely, from his system of colonization. On the 30th December 1840, Lord John Russell intimated to Governor Light, that leave would be given to import free labourers from Sierra Leone into British Guiana. The arrangements made by the acts of the Legisla- tures of the Chartered Colonies, and the ordinances of the Governors and Councils of the Crown Colonies, and sanctioned by the Crown, were, in effect—that the emigration of free labourers from West Africa should be allowed only from Sierra Leone ; that an officer appointed by the British Government, at the expense of the colonies, should watch over the shipping of the emigrants there ; that the emigrants should be engaged for each colony by its agent ; that an officer appointed by the British Government, in each colony, should receive the emigrants on their arrival, and assist them with advice and instruction ; that a certain proportion should be preserved between the sexes of the emigrants; that no contracts entered into by the Negroes before landing in the colony should be binding. These concessions were slowly wrung from Government; and they stopped very far short of what the urgency of the case demanded. A return, laid before Parliament on the 24th March 1843, shows what has been effected under these regulations, down to the most recent period for which information could be ob- tained. From this document it appears, that In Jamaica, a sum of 84,0001 was voted by the Legislature in 1840 for immigration purposes; between 1st October 1840 and 30th Sep- tember 1841, only 16,9651. was expended ; in 1841, a vote of 48,0001. was taken as sufficient for the years 1840 and 1841 ; the annual vote by the act 1841-42 was reduced to 20,0001. The immigration into Jamaica, down to the close of 1841, amounted to 4,003 individuals ; of whom 1,388 were captured Africans. The proportion of males and females was nearly equal.

In British Guiana, there has been voted for immigration purposes— in 1840, 30,0001. ; in 1841, 55,0001.; in 1842, 21,0001., but only 30,000 dollars (rather less than one-third) to be raised within the year. The immigration into British Guiana, down to the close of 1842, amounted to 13,070 individuals ; of whom 1,593 were captured Africans. The proportion of males to females among the captured Africans is unknown ; among the others it is nearly as three to two. A small number only have come as free emigrants from Sierra Leone.

In Trinidad, the immigration-ordinance authorized bounties to be paid indefinitely for all immigrants introduced under the ordinance ; in 1842, a specific sum, viz. 15,0001. per annum, was set apart for immi- gration, out of the colonial chest. The number of immigrants into Trinidad, down to 1842, was 9,120; of these, 827 were captured Afri- cans, and four-fifths of the whole came from the adjacent colonies. The proportion of males and females is not mentioned in the return.

In St. Vincent, the return states, on the authority of evidence given before the West India Committee of last session, that 1,5001. was voted in 1840 for immigration. The immigrants into St. Vincent's in 1840, '41, '42, are stated at 130.

There have been 3,426 captured Africans introduced into the Baha- mas between 1836 and 1841; of whom a good many, there is reason to believe, found their way to other islands. The return of immigrants into Barbados is nil; into Grenada, 165 from Malta ; into Tobago, 6; and into St. Lucia, 10.

This is not much ; but, taken in conjunction with the steady increase in the exports of colonial produce in 1842 and 1843, it is conclusive as to several important points-1. That free Africans will emigrate to the West Indies : 2. That this emigration can be carried on, as appears from the reports of Governor Light and others, without abuse or op- pression:* 3. As appears from the same authorities, that the immi- grants are industrious and well-behaved ; and that the colonies are already on the eve of being restored to their former state of produc- tiveness.

That the Colonial Office is and has for some time been fully aware of these important truths, is clear from a reply by Lord Stanley to some misrepresentations contained in a note from the Spanish Minis- ter for Foreign Affairst of the effects of Emancipation in the British West Indies, and the character of the emigration of free labourers from Sierra Leone. This letter is interesting as evidence that our Go- vernment is in earnest in its wish to promote free emigration from

Africa into the British West Indies; but to a far greater extent it is of importance as a masterly exposure of the fallacious reasonings advanced to decry the measure. A still more unequivocal expression of the sentiments of the British Government on this head was given in despatches addressed by Lord Stanley to the Governor of the Mauri- tius,: on the 22nd of January 1812, stating the conditions under which labourers were to be again allowed to be introduced into that colony from India ; and to the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, on the 27th, intimating the necessity of relaxing the local law which prohi- bited emigration from India.

The great plan for the preservation of the West India Colonies, which was thus slowly making its way upon the convictions of the British Cabinet, was at the same time gaining upon the convictions of the British Legislature. Two Select Committees were appointed by the House of Commons in 1842; and they reported in the course of the session. Both Reports unequivocally recognize the advantages of a system of emigration of free labourers from Africa into our West India Colonies.§ The recommendations of these two Committees have already taken effect. On the 6th February 1843, Lord Stanley addressed a despatch to Governor 111Donald, of Sierra Leone, II and on the 25th of the same month, a circular to all the West India Colonies, intimating the course which Government had resolved to adopt in consequence of the Reports of the West Indian and West African Committees of the House of Commons in session 1842. The despatch to Governor M‘Donald con- tains a distinct account of the general tenour and bearing of the mea- * Appendix to Report from the Select Committee on West India Colonies, p.722. t Appendix. No. V. p. 19.

Appendix, No. VII.; p. 20. § Appendix, Nos. II. and III.; pp. 16-17

§ Appendix, No. IV.; p. 1.

sure. Her Majesty's Government have undertaken the superintendence of emigration from the West Coast of Africa to the British West Indies. Permission is given for emigrants to be taken from Sierra Leone, Boavista, and Loando; the two latter places being seats of Mixed Commissions to be appointed under the treaty with Portugal. The vessels carrying emigrants are to be either chartered by the Government or licensed by the Secretary of State. On board each vessel is to be placed a Lieutenant of the Navy, who shall have the control, and a Surgeon of the Navy, who will examine the emigrants before embarkation, and have the medical charge of them during the voyage. The embarkation is to be superin- tended by a Government-officer. Colonial agents at the ports of embarkation are to be appointed by the colonies, but liable to be suspended by the Governor of the place where they are stationed ; they are to.collect persons who may be disposed to emigrate, but to be prohibited from entering into specific engagements for any exact amount of wages, or doing more than stating the substance of the latest returns of the average rates in each colony, which are to be communicated by the Governors of the Colonies. As a commence- ment, Government have chartered three vessels, which during the next twelve months will effect as many voyages as may be possible within that period, from Sierra Leone, or other ports on the coast of Africa, to Jamaica, Guiana, and Trinidad. Lord Stanley has intimated in his cir- cular despatch, that the same service will be rendered to all the colonies which shall be disposed to make pecuniary provision for that purpose; and that Guiana, Jamaica, and Trinidad, have been selected in the first instance merely because provision appears to have been made in them for emigration purposes to a sufficient amount to insure that the British Treasury would be indemnified against the expense it is about to incur.

A beginning, therefore, has been made. The British Government is committed to the principle of the measure. But it is obvious that much will depend upon the spirit in which the instructions of the Government are carried into execution. Many of the fetters and re- strictions imposed upon the emigration of free Blacks from Africa are perhaps necessary at first, to silence evil-speakers ; but they may tend to discourage it. When a regular stream of emigration has been esta- blished across the Atlantic, it may be placed upon the same footing

as the emigration from Great Britain to Canada. The combina- tion of a system of land-sales and a land-tax with this emigration, in those colonies to which that part of Mr. Wakefield's plan is applicable, has yet to be begun. Last, though not least, the agency of steam should be employed to expedite the communication between the West Indies and the opposite coast of Africa. It is by that agent we are uniting the scattered islands of the Caribbean Sea, and bringing them nearer to England. It is by that agent we are to make Western Africa for the West Indies what the Scottish Highlands and Ire- land have been for the manufacturing districts of this country.

3. THE LEGITIMATE TRADE OF AFRICA.

There is an important question which must not be overlooked in canvassing the merits of this scheme for supplying labour to the Bri- tish West Indies by the voluntary emigration of freemen from Western Africa. Have the Africans obtained that grade of civilization in

which men are found bold and foresighted enough to tear themselves from their native soil—be it for a time or for ever—to seek fortune under more propitious skies ? The answer to this question involves an inquiry into the state of commerce on the West Coast of Africa. The materials for estimating the actual condition of the trade there carried on by the other nations of Europe are very imperfect; but a review of our own English trade will suffice for our present purpose. Since 1807, the trade driven by British subjects on the West Coast

of Africa has been exclusively what is called the legitimate trade, in contradistinction to the debasing slave-trade. The phrase " West Coast of Africa" is used to denote that portion of it along which no national name of territory occurs—the portion intervening between the Northern frontier of the Cape colony and the Southern frontier of Morocco. In fact, however, the active legitimate trade with this coast is bounded by the gum-forests of Senegal on the North, and does not extend South of the Equator.

From a very early period there have been forts established on what is called the Gold Coast, for the protection of British trade. The settle- ments on the Gambia date from the latter part of the seve• teenth century. A. fort was established at Sierra Leone in the reign of Charles I. The history of Sierra Leone, as a colony, dates from 1787, when an attempt was made to colonize it with American refugee Negroes. The settlements On the Gambia continued the pro- perty of a company, till the temporary decline of British trade in that quarter, in consequence of the abolition of the slave-trade, caused them to be deserted. By a treaty between Great Britain and France in 1816, Goree and the Senegal were assigned to France, and the Gambia to Britain : since that time British settlements have again been formed on the Gambia, which have been placed under the colo- nial government of Sierra Leone. The forts on the Gold Coast were vested in the African Company till 1821 ; in that year they were, by an act of the Legislature, vested in the Crown ; in 1827 they were given up to the merchants to be used as factories, the management being in- trusted to a committee of the merchants, and a sum of public money placed annually at their disposal for keeping the buildings in repair and maintaining a garrison. The direct management of these forts has, in the course of the last year, been resumed by Government. Properly speaking, there are no colonies on the West Coast of Africa. The forts on the Gold Coast and the settlements on the Gambia are mere trad- ing-stations, at which the authority of British law is confined to lands the property of British subjects. Sierra Leone is a great receiving- hulk on shore for containing Africans captured on board of slavers. In 1840, the declared value of the produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom exported to the West Coast of Africa was 492,128/. In the same year the declared value of the exports to the Cape of Good Hope was 417,0911.; and that of the exports to all the rest of Africa, including Egypt, the Barbary States, and the Cape Verd Islands' only 147,5141. These figures show the relative importance of the West

African trade,—for it is well known that " declared values" are no test of real value ; it is pretty certain, however, that merchants are not in the habit of declaring greater than the actual values. There was besides, in the same year, a considerable amount of foreign and colonial goods exported to the West Coast of Africa from the United Kingdom. The shipping employed in the trade of the United Kingdom with West Africa appears from the Customhouse books to have numbered in 1840, 134 inward-bound vessels, measuring 32,731 tons, and 152 outward- bound, measuring 39,851 tons. The shipping employed in the same year by the trade to the whole of the rest of Africa (Cape colony included) was 143 inward-bound vessels, measuring 26,567, and 208 outward-bound vessels, measuring 49,494 tons. The tonnage of the outward.bound vessels to all the rest of Africa did not exceed by 10,000 tons that of the outward-bound vessels to the West Coast alone; the tonnage of the inward-bound vessels from all the West of Africa was about 6,000 tons less.

It is not easy to estimate the value of the return-cargoes from the West Coast of Africa, seeing that the Government returns give only the quantities of the principal articles, and moreover omit entirely the article gold dust, which forms a large proportion of the whole. This, however, is of minor consequence, as our object at present is less to ascertain the importance of this trade to Great Britain in an economi- cal point of view than its importance to Africa as a means of civi- lization.

In 1791, Mr. 'Wilberforce declared in the House of Commons, and his statement has not been contradicted, that the value of the commo- dities annually exported from Great Britain for the legitimate trade to the West Coast of Africa did not exceed, one year with another, 140,0001. In 1787, Mr. Clarkson was informed by one of the most ex- tensive African traders of Bristol, that he " purposed to import palm- oil," and that " bees-wax >night also be collected on the coast." The fair inference from these expressions, used by one of the most extensive traders to Africa, in the then principal mart of the African trade, is that neither bees-wax nor palm-oil had previously been imported from the West Coast into Great Britain. At present the quantity of palm-oil annually imported into this country exceeds 20,000 tons per annum ; and bees-wax, which at a recent period was only to be had in small quantities, and mixed with all kinds of impurities, from the coast of Africa, is now imported annually to a great amount, and remarkably pure, both into the United Kingdom and France.

The ground.nut, long cultivated as an article of food throughout the Negro-land of Africa, has become an article of commerce since 1835. It is used in this country for making oil; in America as a fruit. Last year, from 100,000 to 120,000 bushels were exported to this country and the United States from the Gambia; where, when Colonel Findlay was stationed there not many years ago, the foliage of the plant was not always to be had for fodder. Instead of merely exporting gold- dust, great part of which is the produce of a precarious sifting of the sand of rivers, or ivory and ostrich-feathers, procured by the chase, or human beings—all the merchandise of the savage—Africa is now ex- porting, to a large amount, the products of continuous, regulated in- dustry. They are, moreover, the native products of the soil, the reward of industrial processes with which the Africans have long been familiar, but which, wanting the stimulus of a foreign market, they prosecuted more languidly. The African trade has not taught the Negroes to rival other races in the production of commodities already abounding in the market of the world ; it has brought new commodi- ties into that market. It has not attempted to introduce new modes of cultivation and new crops, the success of which would have at least been problematical: it has advanced the African in his habits of fore- sight, and calculating, persevering industry, by giving him a motive to exertion. European trade has made the African civilize himself.

In order to see more clearly the effects of this commerce upon the natives, it will be necessary to take into view the manner in which it is carried on. There are two methods : the one is called the "floating" trade; the other the "shore" trade. The shore trade is carried on at the settlements on the Gold Coast and the Gambia, and at Sierra Leone. Formerly it was carried on by salaried agents for great houses in this country : at present it is carried on by adventurers on their own behalf, who receive goods upon credit from the London houses, upon which a commission is charged. The floating trade ranges along every part of the coast from the Gambia to the Equator, but its principal scene is the "leeward coast," the coast to the westward of our forts on the Gold Coast—along the Delta of the Niger and at the mouth of the Came- roons. In the floating trade, the merchant puts on board ship a certain quantity of goods under the charge of a captain, to sell upon the coast for produce, or for gold or ivory, or anything else; and he remains out till he has disposed of all his cargo. The vessel goes from port to port, and the goods are sold out of the ship. By their intercourse with both classes of traders, the natives are made familiar with European modes of conducting business, and European notions of what is fair and allowable in traffic. The British subjects at the forts and settlements not being allowed to possess slaves, have familiarized the Negro artisans and labourers with the idea of work- ing for wages. At the Gambia and at the forts on the Gold Coast, as well as at Sierra Leone, there is a customary rate of wages, as well known as in any country in Europe. These labourers are at the same time improving in skilled industry : every year the number of tools and implements of agriculture exported from England to Africa is in- creased. The natives in the neighbourhood of the establishments on the Gold Coast have been in the habit of submitting their disputes to the arbitration of the resident Governor ; and his decisions, in which the native laws and customs are reconciled as much as possible to Eng- lish views of equity, persisted in and obeyed for a course of years, have become in a manner the "law of nations" for the neighbouring tribes.

The necessity of employing natives in vessels which are to remain a length of time on the coast, has produced a similar effect upon the Kroomen, the navigators of these regions. By these means a civiliza- tion, has been called into existence on the West Coast of Africa imper- fect when compared with that of Europe, but far in advance of any- thing previously known there. The natives have been taught habits of continuous, calculating industry : they have been taught to assert their own rights against Europeans ; a free labouring class working for wages has been created. They are beginning to learn, that in the countries of the White traders who visit them there are greater gains to be made by the industrious, and that there is perfect safety for them in the lands beyond the ocean, and the power of return. This mental light is strongest in the immediate vicinity of the British settlements, and has been diffused from these centres far into the heart of Africa; and with every extension of the legitimate trade to Africa, the illumination will spread over a wider space.

There are already men in Africa who are willing to emigrate as free labourers—some for a time, some for ever. The experiment has been tried. The Kroomen are willing, the liberated Negroes of Sierra Leone are willing, the natives of the Gambia are willing. Some have already emigrated to the West Indies ; and the evidence of impartial witnesses assures us that they are quite alive to their rights, and sharp enough in taking care of their interests. Every labourer who returns with his wages to Africa will increase the number of those voluntary adventurers ; and as their numbers increase, the civilizing power of trade will be augmented, and the trade itself receive a new impetus.

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The West Indies and Mauritius are at present in a