proceed with a scrupulous attention to means as well as end, to integrity, sincerity, and honour: while there is something in the unincumbered operations of simple absolute power, hastening to the accomplishment of its object with the indiscriminating force of necessity, that makes us feel how much fitter an instrument it is of vast and extensive benefits, could its agency be but securely directed to such a purpose.

The pamphlet which has suggested these remarks, is one of singular interest. It is written by a man of considerable celebrity, M. Grégoire, formerly bishop of Blois, whose name has been brought prominently forward in connexion with the late changes in France. As we believe only two or three copies of the pamphlet have yet reached this country, we conceive that our readers will not be displeased at our making from it rather copious extracts.

The motto which the Author has selected for his title page, is from an English writer :

If you have a right to enslave others, there may be others who have a right to enslave you.'-( Price on the American Revolution.)

There is a characteristic simplicity in this position, which has the force of a thousand arguments.

The work is divided into two chapters. The first treats upon the African Slave Trade. The Author begins by adducing from Ancient History the memorable conduct of Aristides, and of the Athenians who acted by his advice, in rejecting the proposal confided to him by Themistocles, to deliver his country by burning the fleet of Xerxes. Aristides, persuaded that even that object would be purchased too dearly by an act repugnant to morality, declares to the assembly that the means proposed would be highly advantageous, but that it is unjust; and it is rejected. In a treaty with the Carthaginians, Gelon, king of Syracuse, expressly stipulated that they should not sacrifice anymore children to Saturn. With these illustrious instances of national virtue, our Author contrasts the Article in the Treaty of Paris, three and twenty centuries after, by which the French are allowed to steal or buy the natives of Africa for five years longer, for the purpose of transporting them far from their country, and from every object of their affections, and of selling them as beasts of burden, to moisten with their labour the soil, the fruits of which shall belong to others; and to drag out a painful existence, with no other consolation at the end of the day, than that of having taken another step towards the grave.

'Aristides and Gelon were idolaters, we are Christians!'

M. Grégoire's memory has been treacherous. It was the combined fleet of the Lacedæmonian and other Grecian States.

Leaving these facts to make their own impression, our Author then proceeds to combat the different pretexts and evasions, to which the advocates of the Slave Trade have had recourse for the past five-and-twenty years; not scrupling to consider the ministers of the French king, on whom the responsibility of the Article devolved, the organs of the Slave merchants. Referring to the allegations of those who would depreciate the Africans in the scale of intellect,

'One might answer them,' he says, sure of rights. In the eye of the law, ter's equal.'

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that talents are not the meaNewton's servant was his mas

The Author quotes, in terms of deserved reprobation, as a blasphemy against Nature, and the Author of Nature, a sentence from a recent French publication, asserting that the Negro is not susceptible of any virtue. The work alluded to, is entitled, Mémoires sur l'Esclavage colonial. Par M. l'Abbé 'Dillon. 8vo. Paris. 1814.' So that, it seems, this infernal traffic was not without its advocates among the clergy of Paris. In opposing the above assertions, he refers to a work, Sur la Litérature des Négres;' and in the Notes, to a publication entitled, Le Cri de la Nature; par M Juste Chanlatte,' printed at Cape Henry, in 1810, (we presume the production of a native,) which he says is written with the energy of Tacitus. In this is given an account of the infernal invention, of which the Christian White-men have the exclusive honour, of bringing a pack of blood-hounds, at a great expense, from Cuba, whose arrival was celebrated as a triumph, and whose natural voracity they provoked by a stimulating diet. The day on which the first experiment of their ferocity was made upon a Negro bound to a post, was a festival for the Whites of Cape-town, who were assembled round the amphitheatre, to enjoy this spectacle, worthy of cannibals.

But what mode of reasoning can be effectual,' our Author subsequently exclaims, with men who, if we invoke religion or mercy, answer us by speaking of cocoa, of bales of cotton, and the balance of trade? For, they will reply, what will become of commerce, if you suppress the Slave Irade? Do you find an individual who says In continuing it, what will become of justice and humanity?'

M. Grégoire informs us of the infamous attempts that were made o represent the friends of the Slave Trade, in Paris, as having sold themselves to the English, and as having voted, at the Constituent Assembly, in favour of England against Franee. The feeling which unites all good men in defence of the Africans,' he says, was strengthened by the indignation excited by

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the libels of certain individuals, who, judging other men by the feelings of their own heart, can attach no credit to disinterested virtue, but always attribute to others the vilest motives.'

Non, la postérité ne pourra jamais concevoir la 'multitude et la noirceur des menaces, des imposteurs, des outrages dont, jusqu'a l'epoque actuellement inclusivement, nous fûmes les objets, et dont plusieurs d'entre nous ont été les victimes on essaya même, et sans succès, de flétrir le nom de Philantrope, dont s'honore quiconque n'a pas abjuré l'amour du prochain. Puis, d'aprés le langage usité alors, il fut du bon ton de répéter que les principes d'équité, de liberté, étoient des abstractions de la métaphysique, voire même de l'idéologie, car le despotisme a une logique et un argot qui lui sont propres.'

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We are informed, in the next paragraph, that privateers were ready to set sail for the coast of Guinea, in the hope that, after the expiration of the five years allowed for continuing the traffic, it would be indefinitely prolonged.' This fact, the accuracy of which we see no room to doubt, appears to us decisive as to the wisdom of that Article in the Treaty of Paris. M. Grégoire excepts, however, from the general condemnation to which the planters are subjected, some individuals, who, whether they were influenced by benevolent motives, or had been led to feel the necessity of accommodating themselves to circumstances, had meliorated the condition of their slaves, and had even, in some cases, raised then into free cultivators of the soil, awarding them a quarter of the produce. This system, he adds, had been established by Toussaint Louverture, and is followed up by his successors to the present time, as fully developed in a work on the colonies, and particularly on St. Domingo, by Colonel Malenfant, published at Paris in 1814.

The Author proceeds to cite the examples of Denmark, which has the glory of being the first state that abolished 6 the trade;' of the United States; and of England; and the subsequent conduct of the Governments of Chili, Venezuela, and Buenos Ayres, which have made this measure one Article of their constitution. He cites the names of Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and anterior to them in the work, the celebrated Frenchman, Benezet, as in the first rank of those to whose pe severing exertions, so great a proportion of these results is to be ascribed. He contrasts with the number of the English petitions against the Slave Trade, especially with those from Bristol and Liverpool, towns in which, formerly, a friend to the Africans would have stood in danger. of being insulted, the one having 27,000 signatures, the other,

36,000; he contrasts with these the silence and indifference of all classes in France; which were so general, that not a single petition from any one town or corporation, was raised against the Article in the Treaty, while, on the contrary, one was presented from Nantes, imploring the prolongation of the Trade: so completely, it seems, has France become demoralized!

M. Grégoire comments upon the Sixth Resolution of the Friends of the Abolition, passed at the meeting in last June, (the Duke of Gloucester in the Chair,) in which it is stated, that This Society conceive that the disposition manifested in France in favour of the Slave Trade, at a time. when a renewed zeal has been excited for the institutions. of religion, proves, unquestionably, that the true nature and effects of the Trade are not known in that country.'

First,' replies our Author, The inclination manifested towards the Slave Trade, is not the result of ignorance as to its real nature and the effects of this traffic. This inclination is dictated by avarice, horrid avarice, which esteems nothing sacred.'

Secondly, It is painful but necessary to say to this respectable Society, that this novel zeal for religious institutions, scarcely exists but in the desires of real Christians, that is to say, of a few individuals. Some pompous ceremonies are but an equivocal evidence of piety: it is by the reformation of manners that we must estimate its effects. We must judge of the tree by its fruits; and France, contemplated under this aspect, presents a deplorable picture of moral deterioration: "Do to no one that which you would "not have done to you;" "Do to others as you would they should "do to you;" "love your neighbour as yourself:" these are the maxims which emanate from heaven: this is the rock upon which all the paralogisms of covetousness must inevitably be wrecked.'

The Author records the memorable declarations of two pontiffs of the Roman Church, against the Slave Trade; an authority which we have not been accustomed to see exerted on behalf of the general rights of oppressed humanity. Pope Alexander the Third, in a letter to the king of Valentia, remarked, that Nature not having made any slaves, all men had an equal right to liberty.' Paul the Third, in two briefs, dated June 10, 1587, hurled the thunders of the Church against the Europeans who should spoil and enslave the Indians, or any other class of individuals. The Author adduces a similar authority, in obviating the common pretext which he anticipates on the part of the enemies of the Abolition, under the name of reasons of state:

< Cette raison, si fameuse chez les publicistes, que le Pape Pie V. appeloit la raison du diable, est le bouclier derriére lequel se re

tranchent des hommes qui veulent échapper à l'impunité, derriére lequel s'ourdissent les attentats les plus crians contre les peuples.

Wo to the policy,' continues our Author, that would found the prosperity of a nation on the misery of others; and wo to the man whose fortune is cemented by the tears of his fellow-men. It is according to the established order of things under the control of Providence, that whatever is iniquitous should be at the same time impolitic, and that fearful calamities should be the chastisement of crime. The individual culprit suffers not always here below the punishment due to his offence, because, to use the words of St. Augustine, God has eternity to punish in. It is not so with nations: for in their collective capacity, they do not belong to the future state of existence In this world, according to the same Father, they are either recompensed, as the Romans were, for some humane virtues, or punished, as so many nations have been, for national crimes, by national calamities. These calamities are events, to which in England the ministers of religion have often called the attention of their auditory. France, who for a century past, has waged impious war with the Almighty, and with Divine truth, has drunk of the cup of bitterness. Who knows if the dregs are not still reserved for her. This language we must expect to be ridiculed as fanaticism by certain personages: this is one of the lesser trials to which I have acquired the habit of the most perfect resignation.'

Our readers will not fail to appreciate such sentiments as these, which need not the consideration of the character and situation of the individual from whom they proceed, to give them interest and weight. How far the fears which the Bishop. expresses for his country, may be esteemed prophetic of the issue of the impending conflict, a few months will probably enable us to form more than a conjecture.

The Author proceeds to compare the outrages of the Europeans upon Africa, with those committted by the Algerine pirates, which it is disgraceful to the Continental Powers not to have adopted long ago the most vigorous measures for suppressing.

And yet will any one dare say,' he exclaims, that the enormities committed by the Algerines at all equal those we have inflicted upon Africa? What would Europe say, if, suddenly, a second Genseric, a descendant perhaps, or at least a follower of the king of the Vandals, landing upon our coast, were to invade us, saying, I come as a liberator?

M. Gregoire ventures to conjecture the language which the African conqueror might plausibly maintain; and among the examples to which he supposes him to appeal, he cites the pressgangs of England, and the degradation of Ireland. He supposes him to demand of those who pretend that African slaves are