property, and that products of industry find a ready market, and command a supply of European articles which the natives covet, an impulse will, no doubt, be given to internal cultivation. But it is greatly to be desired, that this impulse should be as strong, and operate as speedily, as possible. What we want is, to supplant the Slave Trade by another trade, which shall be more lucrative. We cannot expect that savage nations will be greatly influenced by the promise of prospective advantage. The rise of the legitimate trade ought, if we are to carry the goodwill of the natives along with us, to follow as close as possible upon the downfall of the trade in man: there ought to be an immediate substitute for the gains which are to cease. In short, the natives must be assisted, and by every method in our power put in the way of producing those things which will bear a value in the market of the world. It is impossible that we can be in error in assuming that Africa, under cultivation, will make more from her exports than she now receives from the sale of her population.

There is no danger that the experiment will fail, if time enough is allowed for the full development of its results but there is very considerable risk that the experiment while advancing to maturity will fail, from the impatience of a barbarous people, who are not in the habit of contemplating distant results, and who, finding themselves stripped of one species of customary trade, have not as yet been remunerated

by the acquisition of a better source of revenue. For this reason, I have already suggested that we should, for a time, subsidize the chiefs of Africa, whose assistance we require; and, for the same reason, I now propose that we should give all natural, and even some artificial stimulants to agricultural industry.

If at the moment when the African population find themselves in unaccustomed security, and feel, for the first time, a certainty of reaping what they sow; when they see their river, which has hitherto been worse than useless to the bulk of the people(for it has brought on its waves only an armed banditti, and carried away from their smouldering villages only that banditti exulting in their captured prey)— transformed into the cheapest, the safest, and the most convenient highway between themselves, and the civilized world, and discover it to be the choicest blessing which nature has bestowed upon them ; if at the moment when a market is brought to their doors, and foreign merchants are at hand, ready to exchange for their productions the alluring articles of European manufacture, of which, sparingly as they have hitherto tasted, they know the rare beauty, and surpassing usefulness, if at this moment, when so many specific and powerful motives invite them to the diligent cultivation of their soil, they are visited by a band of agricultural instructors, who offer at once to put them in possession of that skill in husbandry which the rest of the world has acquired, and they are enabled to till their ground in security, and

find opened to them a conveyance for its productions, and a market for their sale; and if simultaneously with these advantages we furnish that practical knowledge, and those mechanical contrivances which the experience of ages, and the ingenuity of successive generations, have by slow degrees disclosed to ourselves-I cannot doubt that those combined benefits and discoveries will furnish an immediate, as well as an ample compensation for the loss of that wicked traffic, which, if it has afforded profit to the few, has exposed the great mass of the inhabitants to unutterable wretchedness.

CHAPTER IV.

RESULTS OF EXPERIENCE.

AFRICA, it is true, is in great measure untried ground, yet there is some information to be derived from the history of those colonies, few and imperfect though they be, which have been attempted along her coasts. There are also important hints to be found in the recorded opinions (many of them drawn from actual experiment) of those who are best acquainted with the subject, whether government officers, travellers, or others. It may now be convenient to turn our attention to the colonies which already belong to us in Africa: in the history of them there is much to confirm my views. I extract the following passage from a paper written by Mr. Bandinel, dated Foreign Office, March 30, 1839:—

"So long ago as in 1792, the colony of Sierra Leone was founded by benevolent individuals, for the express purpose of inducing the natives to abandon the traffic. The course taken was two-fold :-the one, to educate the natives, with the view of teaching them to give up the Slave Trade, on a religious principle; the other, to substitute for that trade a more legitimate commerce.

"The accounts, soon after the settlement was formed, stated, that the natives crowded round the colony both for education and for trade; and that the

beneficial effect on them, in inducing them to quit Slave-trading, was instantaneous. That effect has been continued, and has extended, in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, to a very considerable distance round the colony. Traders bring down the ivory, the gold-dust, and palm-oil, as usual. Of late years, a very important branch has been added to the legal trade, by the cutting of timber for the British navy; and the minds of the natives are thus effectually diverted from the baneful occupation of the Slave Trade, to the pursuits of legitimate commerce.'

I admit, that Sierra Leone has failed to realize all the expectations which were at one time indulged. It must, I fear, be confessed, that the situation was ill-chosen, the north-west wind blows on it from the Bulloom shore, covered with mangrove-swamps, which generate the most destructive malaria. The district is small, by no means affording space for a fair experiment of our system. Nor is the land of the peninsula well suited for the growth of tropical productions; and there is wanting that, without which we can hardly expect to see commerce spring up and thrive in a barbarous country,—a river navigable far into the interior. Besides these natural difficulties, there have been some, arising from the system which we have adopted, or " rather," in the words of one of the strongest advocates in favour of Sierra Leone," in the want of anything like system or preconcerted plan in the administration of its government. . . the whole of its administration, with the exception of its judicial

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