whole tenor of my views. It will be admitted, I think, that I have laboured hard in this book to show, that our great error has been, that we have depended far too much upon physical force. It is, however, the duty of our Government to see that the peace of our settlements be preserved. The natives whom we induce to engage in agriculture must not be exposed to the irruption of a savage banditti, instigated by some miscreant from Europe, whose vessel waits upon the shore for a human cargo. Nor must our runaway sailors repeat in Africa the atrocities which have been practised in New Zealand. Again and again the Foulah tribes said to the missionaries on the river Gambia, "Give us security, and we will gladly till the land and pasture the cattle in your neighbourhood." There were no means of thus protecting them, and hence an experiment, founded on admirable principles, failed. But when I ask for an effectual police force, I ask for that only. I do not desire the employment of such a military force as might be perverted into the means of war and conquest. I want only, that the man engaged in lawful and innocent employment in Africa, should have the same protection as an agricultural labourer or a mechanic receives in England; and that there, as well as here, the murderer and man-stealer may be arrested and punished.

It is possible that in these views I may be mistaken; and that the gentlemen to whom I allude may wholly differ from me. But there is no reason because they do so, avowing their dissent, that they should abstain from joining me in the task of delivering Africa from the Slave Trade by the means of her own mind, and her own resources, developed and cultivated. In this object we heartily agree; and for its accomplishment we may heartily unite. I number amongst my coadjutors very many of the Society of Friends; but I prize too highly the disinterested and unflinching zeal with which that body pursues the objects which it approves, to be content to lose any individual of the number, especially through a misapprehension; and it is for the purpose of averting this, that I have thought it necessary to enter into this explanation.

I have already described the state of Africa. It will on all hands be said that there are great, if not invincible, difficulties to the application of a remedy. This is but too true. There is only one consideration strong enough to prompt us to grapple with these difficulties, namely, a just apprehension of her miseries. I pray my readers not to shrink from the task of sedulously studying the facts collected in this book. In the case of Africa, I fear hardly anything

so much as the indulgence of excessive tenderness of feeling. If the benevolent and religious portion of the public choose to content themselves with the general and superficial conviction, that there is no doubt a great mass of misery in Africa, but refuse to sift and scrutinize each circumstance of horror, pleading the susceptibility of their nerves as an apology to themselves for shutting their eyes and closing their ears to such revolting details; then the best hope for Africa-perhaps the only hope-vanishes away. That resolute, unflinching, untiring determination which is necessary, in order to surmount the difficulties which lie in the way of her deliverance, requires not only that the understanding should be convinced, but that the heart should be moved. Our feelings will be far too tame for the occasion, unless we can, in pity to Africa, summon courage enough to face, and to study, the horrors of the Slave Trade, and the abominations which there grow out of a dark and bloody superstition.

INTRODUCTION.

It has been no very difficult task to collect materials for a description of the varied and intense miseries with which Africa is afflicted. Every person who visits that country,-whether his motive be the pursuit of traffic or the gratification of curiosity, the prosecution of geographical science or of missionary labour, brings back a copious collection of details calculated to excite pity, disgust, and horror.

Happy would it be if it were as easy to point out the remedy, as to explore the disease.

To this task I now address myself, difficult though it be, from various causes-from the magnitude of the evil-from the vast and complicated interests involved-and from the comparative scantiness of our information. For, while the miseries of Africa are such as meet the eye of the most casual traveller,-while her crimes and woes are such as no one can overlook ;the sources from whence we must hope for the remedy lie much deeper and far more hidden from our view. We know so little really of the interior of Africa,— her geography, her history, her soil, climate, and productions, so little of the true condition and capa

bilities of her inhabitants, that (having collected all the information within my reach) it is with very great diffidence I venture to put forth what appear to me, to be the principles which must rescue her, and the steps which we, as a nation, and as individuals, are called upon to take, to carry those principles into operation.

In one respect I apprehend no liability to error. With all confidence we may affirm, that nothing permanent will be effected, unless we raise the native mind. It is possible to conceive such an application of force, as shall blockade the whole coast, and sweep away every slaver: but should that effort relax, the trade in man would revive. Compulsion, so long as it lasts, may restrain the act, but it will not eradicate the motive. The African will not have ceased to desire, and vehemently to crave, the spirits, the ammunition, and the articles of finery and commerce which Europe alone can supply: and these he can obtain by the Slave Trade, and by the Slave Trade only, while he remains what he is. The pursuit of man, therefore, is to him not a matter of choice and selection, but of necessity, and after any interval of constrained abstinence he will revert to it as the business of his life.

But, when the African nations shall emerge from their present state of darkness and debasement, they will require no arguments from us, to convince them of the monstrous impolicy of the Slave Trade. They will not be content to see their remaining territories