ous parts of the world. On this score, ac-¡ intoxicated with vanity to give utterance to cordingly, we have nothing to apprehend such an observation, because it implies that from war, for though, at the outbreak, our he alone in the infinite incertitude of all merchantmen might suffer a little from human affairs is able to tower above passion privateers, we should soon clear the sea of and prejudice, and discover what is right. that nuisance. Lastly, we should indubita- The age, however, is not so wholly a prey bly relieve France from the incumbrance to delusions, that the only sane man left is of Algeria, first by cutting off all commu- a crazy phamphleteer. nication between the colony and the mother eountry; and, secondly, by affording aid to the bold chivalry of the desert, which, supplied by us with money, arms, and ammunition, would make one razia of the whole country, and either capture the en-ion of mankind, than that which M. Guizot tire French population, or drive it into the sea. Such are some of the consequences that would probably flow from the breaking forth of war between Great Britain and France, as the majority of French statesmen appear fully to comprehend. Still, both they and many of their partisans in this country, seem to be of opinion that the duty of warding off hostilities devolves exclusively upon us. It follows, also, from what they say, whether they intend it or nct, that we alone possess the power to disturb the peace of the world, since all governments and all people would pursue noiselessly the even tenor of their way, if our violent and all-grasping policy would permit them. But, though we act thus, like a sort of terrestrial destiny, lulling the world into peace, or shaking it at our pleasure, it is we who, according to these prophets of evil,-it is we, after all, who have the most to fear from the consequences of our own armipotence. There may possibly, if they could but discover it, lurk some fallacy in this curious chain of inferences. Having at our command so many resources and means so multiplied of offence, stretching as we do by chains of settlements through both hemispheres, inhabiting the torrid zone and looking upon the ice of either pole, it seems likely that we should be able to inflict more injury upon our enemies than they on us. We speak now, solely with reference to human probabilities, and make no presumptuous reference to that mysterious influence to which both the humble and the great are alike subject. Should hostilities, however, spring out of our efforts in behalf of humanity, our cause would be the cause of justice, so that we should, in this sense also, have less to fear than our enemies. But, according to some speculators, we are blinded by our philanthropy, and trust too much to the goodness of our intentions. A man must, indeed, be But to return to M. Guizot. There is possibly on record in the history of modern statesmen no more striking example of bad faith, of sudden and audacious change of policy, of reckless indifference to the opin has exhibited in the matter of the Right of Search. In his correspondence with the Earl of Aberdeen he most felicitously exemplifies the correctness of the estimate formed of his policy by Count Molé, when he said it was a policy of extremes, of extremes even in weakness. In applying to a foreign government in order to procure its sudden abandonment of a system of indescribable magnitude, of a system established for the protection of the inhabitants of one whole quarter of the world, of a system hallowed by the cause of humanity, and springing out of the greatest sacrifices ever made by a great people in obedience to the sentiment of duty, M. Guizot does not present himself armed with any respectable reasons of state; but comes forward, and bases his claim solely on the ignorant passions and prejudices of his countrymen. He makes some little show, indeed, of contradicting his former affirmations, that the Right of Search had produced all the effects that were expected of it, and was attended by scarcely any abuses at all; but the reasons he most relies on are, that the excitement against the Right is rapidly spreading in France, that it is likely to spread still more, and that it already embraces within the circle of its operation both their houses of parliament. He then goes on to insinuate, in something very much like a menace-the menace of weakness, as Count Molé expresses it-that unless the reason of England will, at this important juncture, yield to the prejudice of France, great mischief may possibly ensue. He assumes, indeed, the tone of a dictator, and tells the British minister that agreement with his proposition is 'indispensable!" What Lord Palmerston would have replied to such a threat as this, every man in England may know by consulting his own feelings. He would have informed M. Guizot that we made no account of the passion and folly of France; but that we would compel her to execute attentively reads his correspondence must the treaties into which she had entered, or feel. He there says, that the substitute for defend her bad faith by arms. It is not, in the Right of Search to be proposed by the fact, for us to lay by our good will towards commission is to be regarded in the light of mankind, because the French people never an experiment, and that, consequently, know what they would be at; because they while the two countries are engaged in determine one thing to-day, and another to-working it, in order to ascertain whether it morrow; because they desire, at the same succeeds or not, the Right of Search must time, to obtain credit for philanthropy, and necessarily be suspended. to enjoy the profits arising from the sale of From this statement the course that will men. It is for the French government to be pursued must be obvious. Should the correct the notions and sentiments of its ignorance and obstinacy of the French subjects, and not basely to come whining to prove exceedingly difficult to be subdued, foreign governments, to protect it from the it will be maintained in the teeth of facts consequences of the ignorance which it fos- and experience, that the experiment has succeeded, and no return will ever be made to the Right of Search. But if, on the other hand, the fury of the French prove, as is most likely, evanescent, while the convictions of the anti-slavery party in this country only grow stronger and stronger with time, why then the conclusion will be, that the new-fangled system has proved a failure, and that it would have been much better to persist, from the first, in standing on the old ways, to which we should be necessitated to return. ters. But what is Lord Aberdeen's reply to M. Guizot's communication? We take some credit to ourselves for ingenuity, for some little experience in literature and politics, for some slight power of discrimination and judgment; and yet we can neither determine within ourselves what we are to think of his lordship's answer, or what description it is proper to give of it. We are entirely nonplused by his lordship. He tells the French foreign minister, in tolerably plain language, that he knows perfectly well, as In the mean while every one who takes every body else does, that no adequate sub- any interest in the subject is doubtless stitute for the Right of Search can possibly anxious to know what scheme is likely to be discovered, and that the appointment, be hit on by the mixed commission, and therefore, of any commission, whether whether, in their deliberations, its members mixed or unmixed, must be a mere act of are completely free, or act more or less hypocrisy, originating in no faith, and ex-under instructions. M. Guizot himself has pected to lead to no advantage. His lord- already formed something like a plan, to ship causes it, however, to be understood, which he darkly alludes in his communicathat he sympathizes very strongly with the tion to the Count St. Aulaire. To have difficulties of M. Guizot, and that he enter-explained the nature of it would have been tains precisely the same opinion as he does imprudent; because, if the Duc de Broglie of the stupid excitement which has been got up by the advocates of slavery in France, and that, in consequence of this sympathy and this conviction, he will consent to assist in practising a hoax upon the French people, by giving them a commission which may sit and deliberate, till they shall have leisure to come to their senses. But if they should prove madder than he expects, and persist even after the commission shall have pleasantly trifled away several months or years in chatting and taking snuff together -if they should persist, we say, in requiring the abandonment of the Right of Search, then his lordship will take a new view of the matter, reverse things a little, and, instead of practising delusions on the French, put a cheat on the good people of this country. That this is no strained inference from Lord Aberdeen's language, every one who should by accident have fallen upon any thing like the same project, it might, by ill-natured persons, be pretended that he had been prompted by M. Guizot. The secret, however, has to a certain extent transpired; we mean, as far as regards M. Guizot's idea; for what the mixed commission may in its wisdom think proper to recommend, we by no means affect to foresee. In the plan of the French foreign minister the Right of Search is still retained, but under certain conditions which, according to him, will render it unobjectionable, and, according to us, altogether ineffectual. He proposes that on board every British cruiser there should be a French officer, to whom should be delegated the delicate task of examining all suspected ships claiming the protection of the French flag; while on board French cruisers there should be a British officer for they convert their own affliction into a genthe performance of a similar duty. We eral calamity. We could almost wish we congratulate M. Guizot upon his invention. had lost the battle, if happily in that case It argues a degree of simplicity and of con- we could hope to hear no more about it. fidence in human nature which we should But success would only have moulded the scarcely have expected to find in its au- national vanity into a different form, and thor. Truly M. Guizot is a far-seeing boasting and exultation would have been statesman! Nevertheless there occur to made to perform the work which the thirst us some little objections which may be of revenge does now. Under these circumurged against his plan. In the first place, stances we should bestow our choicest pity how are we to be sure when a slaver with a on the wretched lieutenant who should unFrench flag flying heaves in sight, that the der M. Guizot's system be condemned to aforesaid officer would always be in readi- do penance for his sins in the purgatory of ness to board her? It might be night, it a French ship-of-war. For our own part might be blowing weather, he might be lazy, we would as soon be sent to the galleys at or he might be sick; and not being under once. We say nothing now of the elements the orders of the British commander, he of French conversation, which the English might often make it a point of honor not gentleman would look upon with disgust, to obey. In this way differences would its impiety, its sensuality, its gross indearise which might terminate in serious cency. Imagine the conversation of such quarrels, while the service would be utter-officers as M. Dupetit Thouars and his ly neglected. Again, a foreign naval offi- companions who flooded the Society Islands cer placed even in the midst of the gentle- with their vices. But we forbear. Enough men who command our ships of war, would we trust has been said to show the utter aboccupy no very enviable position. Our surdity of M. Guizot's project. It is to be sailors, high and low, entertain an over- hoped the mixed commission will have weening contempt for the French, which something better than this to propose, oththey could scarcely be expected to get rid erwise the enlightened and religious comof all at once, because an officer belonging munity of Great Britain will reject it with to that people was among them. Without scorn. Even Lord Aberdeen, to whom M. intending any offence they would be Guizot communicates his ideas, could disperpetually saying things which would cover but little promise in them. With wound his feelings and humiliate his pride, every disposition in the world to oblige the so that, we will venture to affirm, every French minister, he felt that it would be French officer, without exception, who beyond his power to render his plan palashould be thus located on board of a Brit-table to the Parliament or people of Engish ship-of-war, would leave it ten times more than ever the enemy of England. land; and therefore it was that he felt himself bound in candor to declare that he had hitherto seen no plan proposed which could safely be adopted as a substitute for the Right of Search.' We are glad his lordship could muster sufficient spirit to make this declaration, and that he and his colleagues still 'hesitated' to fall into the trap laid for them by their friend M. Guizot. The situation of the British officer on board of a French ship would be infinitely worse. The insults given in the former case unintentionally would be here studied and contrived with exquisite malice. He would every day and hour of the day have to fight over again the battle of Waterloo; for, as the moth by some inexplicable fasci- Should any desperate scheme be proponation plunges into the splendors of the sed, it is easy to foresee what course minisflame that threatens to consume it, so ters will pursue in their endeavors to miFrenchmen of all ranks and conditions are tigate the hostility of the public. They attracted towards the blighting glories of will avail themselves of the rash and unthat field. No memorable name occurs so founded admission made by certain philanfrequently in the debates of their Cham-thropists, that the Right of Search, instead bers, in the columns of their journals, in of effecting the purpose which it was their conversation whether at home or abroad. It would seem as though they expected to efface the memory of that dire defeat by clamoring everlastingly about it, and inventing pretexts and reasons to explain away what took place. By this means designed to effect, only multiplied the sufferings of the negroes and the number of the victims that annually fall a sacrifice to avarice. But what then are those sufferings, and what is the number of the victims annually offered up to the Moloch of modern civili- nothing in comparison with that which must zation? Lord Palmerston, in one of the attend the transport of so many slaves under most eloquent and convincing speeches any circumstances. If the slavers were deever delivered within the walls of parlia-livered to-morrow from all fear of cruisers, ment, entered upon the whole topic towards they would not be delivered from the fear the close of the last session. To that speech of their prisoners. Manacles and chains, we refer our readers. We can neither re- therefore, would not be dispensed with, produce its facts in full, nor imitate its neither would that crowding and severe eloquence. But we may remark in general confinement which at present occasion the terms, that the amount of human misery daily most grievous tortures endured by the neoccasioned by the slave-trade, surpasses all groes. Neither would the miscreant traders conception and belief. We ourselves have be delivered from their own evil passions, seen a slave-caravan which, having probably from cruelty and lust of gold, and whatever consisted at the outset of several thousand else degrades and pollutes human nature. men, women, and children, in good health, These causes would remain in full operaand with every prospect of long life before tion though Great Britain should withdraw them, had dwindled down by degrees to a her hand and suffer slavery to take its full small number, of which only the pampered swing. We are not, however, left to collect few, spared for the worst of purposes, re- by inference what would be the internal tained either health or spirits when approach-state of slave-ships, supposing the traffic to ing the close of their odious pilgrimage. be made completely free, since we can reThey had come from the heart of Africa, vert to the example of what it was when no had traversed mountains and deserts, and restraint was put upon it, and from examigreat rivers, and had left their track marked nation we find that the horrors of the middle by bones and skeletons. In other parts of passage were no way inferior to what they the continent, and under other slave-traders, are at present. Those philanthropists, therethe horrors of the march are more fearful. fore, who disparage the Right of Search, The weak and the infirm are knocked on because it fails to produce all the good the head as they proceed, or left to perish effects originally expected from it, are guilty of thirst and hunger, or to be devoured by of a great crime against humanity, because wild beasts in the depths of the wilderness. by supplying the advocates of slavery with In this way, it is said, in all the kafilas that arguments, they do much towards establishdescend to the western coasts, three out of ing a free traffic in human victims. Supfour of the original number of slaves cap- posing, however, that the sufferings which tured, perish by the way. Then follow the the slaves endure at sea were, to a certain diabolical cruelties of the barracoons where extent, augmented by the establishment of the slaves are examined and sorted, the hale the Right of Search, no one pretends that and hearty being delivered over to the cap-it is answerable for the miseries inflicted on tains of ships, to be transported across the the captives upon their way to the seaAtlantic, while the weak are summarily coast. Yet these must far exceed the others disposed of by murder on the spot, or turned in intensity and destructiveness, since, adrift to die of famine in the surrounding the former are supposed to cut off only 50,000 souls a year, the latter are fatal to at least six times that number. wastes. while The few inconsiderate philanthropists who have given currency to the notion that But if we stop short here, the most imthe Right of Search multiplies the sufferings portant part of the subject must be overof the slave, only take of course into their looked; for, unless it can be shown that account those who are actually shipped, the more obstacles you throw in the way of amounting annually, it is said, to about any traffic the more it flourishes, it must be 200,000, one-fourth part of whom perish at confessed that the practice of the Right of sea. This is a frightful waste of human Search wonderfully circumscribes the traffic life, the guilt of which is not to be extenu-in slaves, reducing it probably to one-sixth ated by any arguments or considerations or one-eighth of what it would otherwise be. whatsoever. But how much of the misery As it is, however, what numbers does it ansuffered in the transit is attributable to the Right of Search, to the build of the vessels constructed, not for room, but for speed, and to every other circumstance arising out of the fear of capture? We apprehend that it is nually cost Africa? Little short of half-amillion, so that within the memory of man a number of human beings equal to the whole present population of the British empire in Europe has been cut off by the slave of negro slavery. But their arts, though sufficiently subtle to delude the unreasoning multitude of France, can by no means shield them from the penetration of this country. We understand perfectly well, under the influence of what inspiration they write, whether they seek to avail themselves of the powerful sympathy of the United States, or labor to serve some popular prejudices in Spain, by the grossest misrepresentations of our principles and policy. trade. Surely, therefore, it is no exaggera- all evil, so he works, like him, in darkness, tion to say that all the crimes ever perpetra- clandestinely, under the thickest mask that ted by mankind from the creation of the can possibly be supplied by hypocrisy and world to this hour, cannot exceed in num-fraud. ber or atrocity the crimes perpetrated by Yet, to uphold a traffic carried on by the slave-trade alone. Humane men are ac- miscreants such as we have described, and customed to talk of the ravages of war and of by such only, is France at present laboring the annihilation of armies; but what are these might and main. The rabble of sophists by compared with the ravages of the slave- which the salons of her capital are peopled, trade? We shudder with horror as we fol- and by which, chiefly, her press is conductlow in the page of the historian the devas-ed, endeavor, indeed, to impress a sort of tating course of Timúr, who swept like a national character on the agitation which hurricane over the plains of Asia, over- they have been enabled to get up in favor throwing cities, massacring whole populations, and leaving the earth in the rear of his army one vast wilderness. The same feeling comes over us when we follow Napoleon, for a time the scourge of Europe, in his disastrous expedition against Russia with one of the largest armies that have ever taken the field in modern times, and when we behold that army defeated, pursued, cut to pieces, and its scattered fragments chased with profound humiliation back to the country which had sent them forth on their un- Under these circumstances, it is extremeprincipled mission. Yet, the sacrifice, in ly difficult to foresee what will be the future either case, of human life, was probably in-course of France in reference to the Right ferior to that which is caused annually by of Search. When M. Guizot falls, by whom the slave-trade. And in the instances to is he to be succeeded? and will that stateswhich we have adverted, there were the il-man, whoever he may be, prove more sagalusions of ambition, the blind thirst of con- cious or more honest? The hopes of one quest, the hurry and excitement of war, to party are centered in M. Thiers, who, on color, and, in some sort, to mitigate the ca- the subject of the Right of Search, neither lamities endured. But, in the case of the knows his own mind, nor what is due to the slave-trade, there is no passion concerned honor of his country. It would be difficult which can possibly cast a halo over the to play a more disreputable part than has crime. The perpetrators repair to the scene been played by this political impostor, in of their villainy, not ostentatiously, in great connexion with the very question under connumbers, with waving banners, and sound sideration. In the debates of the present of trumpet, and beat of drum, but secretly, year, while laboring to place himself in the few at a time, under false colors, and with most advantageous light in the eyes of every other precaution which the systematic France, M. Thiers was guilty of an act of perpetrators of guilt are wont to take, in the hypocrisy so palpable, that nothing but the hope of escaping detection. As the basest furious character of French disputation motives that can prompt human action are could have prevented its being detected and theirs, they find it impossible to attach even pointed out. He objected to M. Guizot, as the most factitious glory to their calling. a flagrant delinquency, the treaty of 1841, Highwaymen have been known to acquire a which he described as a great sacrifice made degree of notoriety, almost amounting to by France to England; and on his own side fame, and pirates and buccaneers have even of the Chamber, this accusation was regloried in fighting under the black flag; but ceived with rapturous applause. But how there is, we believe, no instance on record stands the fact? When the idea of that of a slaver's being proud of his achievements, treaty was first conceived, and during the no example of his coming forward and whole period in which it was negotiated, boasting of the number of victims he has M. Thiers himself was minister, and directconsigned to hopeless servitude, or flung ed every step that was taken. M. Guizot was into the Atlantic, or caused to be butchered but his agent, who originated nothing, but on the coast of Africa. As he derives his only executed, with more or less ability, the principles from the author and source of task confided to him by his present accuser. |