very best to the level of a well-pampered beast of burden. The weaker the negro is by nature, the less able he is to help himself, the more he needs the enjoyment of law and civil freedom, which form virtually the sole protection in this world of the feeble against the strong. Such at any rate is my belief. Even if this belief is mistaken, there is still no good in refusing to acknowledge facts. No candid observer can, I think, fail in coming to the conclusion, from his own observation and the universal testimony of impartial critics, that the negro is not intellectually, possibly not morally, as highly developed as yet as the white man. The Uncle Tom school of Abolitionists have injured a great cause by throwing over it a veil of romantic unreality. The evils. of slavery are not exposed by an attempt to prove that "the black man is as good as the white man, and better too." The Abolition Party would have had far more power if they had accommodated their theory about slavery to the facts, instead of moulding facts to suit their theory. No cause in the world, not even so good a one as that of emancipation, is strengthened by a suppressio veri.

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THE SLAVE-TRADER GORDON.

ON the 21st February, 1862, for the first time in the annals of New York State, and I believe for the first time in the annals of the United States, a slave-trader underwent the penalty of death for having been engaged in the slave-trade. The case was a remarkable one in itself-remarkable still more as an illustration of the change in public feeling which had passed over the popular Northern mind since the outbreak of Secession. At the period of my first visit to New York, it was the great incident of the day. In the opinion of those best competent to judge, this execution was one of the severest blows yet struck against the whole system of slavery. It is on this account that I have recorded its general outline.

It is now more than forty years ago-if I am not mistaken, in the year 1818-that the prosecution of the African Slave-trade was declared an act of piracy by the Federal Government, and, as such, punishable by death. Practically, the Government contented itself with this abstract enunciation of principle, and never

endeavoured to turn theory into practice. It is only just to state that the slave-trade had been, of late years, an unimportant item in the commerce of North America. Partly owing to the absence of a home-market, partly to the vigilance of the British cruisers, and still more to the obloquy which attended any person supposed to be engaged in the traffic, the trade had been, relatively, but little prosecuted. It is just also to admit, that such slave-trading as there was, was carried on by Northern and not by Southern men. The North had far greater material facilities than the South for engaging in the traffic. The interests of the slave-breeding States were steadily opposed to any importation of African slaves, and also with the South, it was a point of honour to have nothing whatever to do with the slave-trade. It is to the credit of human nature, if not of human consistency, that most individuals or nations addicted habitually to any sin, have some peculiar development of that sin on which they look with exaggerated aversion. Slavery was the sin the South had a mind to for the slave-trade they were not inclined, and damned it accordingly. Be this the right explanation or not, it was by Northern Yankees that the trade was mainly carried on, and New York was the headquarters of the traffic. The whole affair was kept very secret. There were in New York a certain small number of mercantile houses, surmised, rather than suspected, to be engaged in the African Slave-trade-perhaps a score

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or so in all; and every year a few vessels sailed from the port to trade with Africa, nominally for produce, but in reality for slaves. The Anti-slavery Party, to their credit, kept a keen look out for all vessels engaged in the trade, and resolved that the law against slave-trading should not be allowed to fall into disuse for want of protest. Whenever their agents could ascertain that a vessel was about to sail on this errand, they gave information to the State authorities, but always without effect. Under the "rowdy" Government of the Woods and Kennedys-which, till within the last few years, disgraced New York-the police were notoriously venal, and it was worth a slaver's while to bribe liberally. The more respectable authorities of the State all belonged to the extreme Democratic Party, and were unwilling to do anything which might offend the pro-slavery interest, or, still more, strengthen the hands of the Abolitionists. More than all too, public opinion was not in favour of vigorous measures. There was a general though unexpressed conviction that the slave-trade between Virginia and the South differed only in name, not in substance, from the slave-trade between Africa and Cuba; and that the country which recognised the former as a "peculiar institution," could hardly be very severe in suppressing the latter. Indeed, the connivance of the North in the slave-system of the South had so demoralised public feeling on the whole subject, that the refusal to allow British cruisers

to stop vessels engaged in the slave trade whilst sailing under the American flag, was regarded as a national triumph. The result of this state of things was that slavers were generally allowed to escape unarrested; and even if they were brought to trial, either the juries refused to convict, or else the punishment inflicted, on the plea of insufficient evidence or of extenuating circumstances, was extremely light.

Impelled by the remonstrances of Foreign Powers, rather than by any pressure of public feeling at home, the United States Government, towards the end of Mr. Buchanan's Presidency, had begun to employ a little more activity in suppressing the African trade; and in the autumn of 1860 a slaver, loaded with a cargo of nine hundred slaves, and commanded by Captain Gordon, was seized off the coast of Africa by an American manof-war. The slaves were landed in Monrovia, and the captain of the slaver was sent to New York-the port from which he had sailed-for trial. The case was a very bad one. The negroes had been packed with more than usual disregard for life, and treated with more than common inhumanity. Of the nine hundred and odd shipped on the "Erie," three hundred died before the vessel reached Liberia. No excuse could be made for the captain personally: he was a New-Englander from Maine, of a very respectable Presbyterian family, and a man of education. This was the fourth slavetrip in which he had embarked, and in two out of the