NOTE ON THE COMPLICITY OF LIBERIANS IN THE SLAVE TRADE. We have received a communication, dated Monrovia, January 5. 1859, from Mr. J. J. Roberts, late President of Liberia, in which that gentleman complains of certain statements relating to his own alleged participation in slave-trading transactions, which were published in this Journal in October last (vol. cviii. p. 557.). These statements were cited by us on the authority of Dr. Bacon, an American physician of the highest character, who related in the 'New York Day Book,' of July 11. and 15. 1848, what he had seen during his residence in Liberia. After quoting the passages referred to, Mr. Roberts proceeds in these words: Now, Sir, this is all very specious indeed; but believe me the whole story of slave-trade complicity on my part with Pedro Blanco or any other slave trader is wholly false. I never in my life saw or had the slightest correspondence with Pedro Blanco or any one else in his name or on his behalf. I never visited Pedro Blanco's slave establishment, or any other, except for the purpose of demolishing it. I never, in any respect whatever, acted as agent or factor for Pedro Blanco or any other slave trader. I was never employed in purchasing condemned vessels at Sierra Leone or elsewhere, for the use of Blanco or any other slave trader. I did purchase at Sierra Leone, I think in 1837,- and the only purchase of a vessel I was ever concerned in at that place a schooner for the trading firm of which I was a partner, to supply the place of one we had a few weeks before lost by shipwreck; and which newly purchased schooner we christened the "Monrovia," and had her employed for some time in the coasting trade, when it was concluded to sell her, and procure another better suited to our purpose. She was accordingly sold to a gentleman, as far as we knew, wholly unconnected with the slave trade. Subsequently, however, this vessel, without any agency whatever on my part, fell into the hands, I believe, of Pedro Blanco. Whether or no she conveyed slaves to the Havannab, I positively have no knowledge.' To this declaration is annexed a certificate signed by seventeen of the principal persons in Liberia to the effect that the subscribers have no knowledge of any complicity on the part of Mr. Roberts in the slave trade, and that, to the best of their belief, the foregoing statement is entitled to full and implicit credit. In fairness to Mr. Roberts, and at his request, we publish this contradiction; but the question rests between himself and Dr. Bacon, not between himself and this Journal. In 1848, a similar denial of the charge against the authorities in Liberia was addressed by Mr. Roberts and Mr. Pinney to the American journals, to which Dr. Bacon replied with great minuteness in the very articles of the 'New 'York Day Book,' to which we referred. With regard to the alleged complicity of the authorities in Liberia in the French slave trade on the African coast (which is not adverted to by Mr. Roberts in his letter to ourselves), we may here remark that the facts relied on by this Journal were corroborated by the Hon. James H. Hammond, a Senator of the United States, in a speech delivered by him at Barnwell Court House, New York, on the 29th October last, before the EDINBURGH REVIEW for that month had reached America. The President of the Colonisation Society, Mr. Latrobe, of Baltimore, has endeavoured to refute these statements in a letter addressed to Mr. Hammond. A further contradiction of the facts relating to the complicity of the Liberians in the affair of the Regina Coeli,' as set forth in the Official Report of the French Minister of Marine to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated June 18th, 1858 —which Report was quoted and relied on by Lord Malmesbury in the House of Lords has been addressed by Mr. Roberts to Benjamin Coates Esq. of Philadelphia. And on the 6th January, 1859, in answer to a Resolution of the Liberian House of Representatives, the President of that Republic addressed to the House a message relating to the whole French system of emigration on that coast, and denying in the most positive language the statements of the French officers and agents concerned in that nefarious transaction. Our limits forbid us to enter into the details of this controversy, which are numerous and complicated; but in justice to all parties we are anxious to make it known, that whatever the conduct of some persons in Liberia may have been, the authorities of that State now feel it incumbent upon them to deny, in the strongest terms, the charge of complicity in the slave trade, brought against them in the Reports of the French agents. We hope those Reports may be disavowed by the French as well as the Liberian Government; for the transaction is alike discreditable to both parties. But the President of the Colonisation Society himself begins by admitting, that if Captain 'Simon was urged to obtain what emigrants he wanted within the 'jurisdiction of Liberia, and if he paid, beforehand, for the privilege of doing so, then France and Liberia were accomplices in an attempt to revive, practically, the slave-trade.' These are Mr. Latrobe's own words; and in using them he is aware that the facts he disputes are known in Europe, and have obtained credence here, on the official authority of the French Government. No. CCXXIII. will be published early in July. INDEX. A Artillery, improvements in, 526-Morgan and Holroyd's gun, 527 B Barth, Dr. Henry, his Travels and Discoveries in North and Central British Museum Library, Catalogues of the printed books in, 201— Broughton, Lord, remarks on Italy, 581. C Catacombs, Roman, review of works relating to, 86, et seq.-great Church Rate Question, works on, reviewed, 66, et seq.-origin and D - - Dictionaries, English, essays relating to, 365 — importance of lexico- F Female Industry, works relating to, 293- women's lives not less - - G - - -- medical Guns Rifled, works regarding, 514 — fire-arms unimproved for two H Helps, Arthur, The Spanish conquest in America, and its relation to Hodson, Major W. S. R., Memoirs of, reviewed, 545, et seq. I Indian Mutiny, test of national character, 346. Italy, works bearing on, 558-the misgovernment of Italy in part the |