for getting cotton next season, &c., and it is evident that his operations have raised a general interest on the subject. Doubtless our consistent testimony against slavery has thus been brought home to the consciences of hundreds in the midst of a slave state. May an over-ruling providence bless the bread thus cast upon the waters! An agent, says he, has had much to contend with in this business, sometimes of an unpleasant character, but adds: though shall I say that our path has appeared to be guarded by divine providence, for which we ought to be exceedingly thankful, and I think we are.' He had been about three months in Missisippi, and when he wrote was going further south.”

VIRGINIA: We learn from the Colonization Journal that Judge Leigh,

same subject, "This notable country builds up with one hand what it is trying to pull down with the other."

No one pretends to question the propriety of the British enactment making the carrying of the slave-trade by British subjects piracy. This is a restriction of private enterprise, for the attainment of a glorious and holy object; and general opinion concurs in its propriety and justice. If public interference in a particular description of private undertakings be justifiable in one instance, for a given purpose, it is justifiable in all cases for the same purpose; and we can see no reason why a sweeping enactment should not be passed, declaring it to be illegal for Englishmen to be concerned in undertakings, having for their direct tendency the

the penalties annexed to slave carrying by British subjects are unjust, and ought to be abolished, or the British goverment will be justified in

TEXAS:--The work of annexation being now finished, we have thought proper to place on record a few memorials of the conclusion, for general information and future reference. We give first the entire provision respecting slavery, in the new constitution of Texas. The clause is as follows:

"SLAVES.

"Section 1.—The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owners, nor without paying their owners, previous to such emancipation, an equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of the United States, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of this State: Provided, That such slave be the bona fide property of such emigrants: Provided, also, that laws shall be passed to prohibit the introduction, into this State, of slaves who have committed high crimes in other States or territories. They shall have the right to pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of creditors, and preventing them from becoming a public charge. They shall have full power to pass laws which will oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity; to provide for them necessary food and clothing; to abstain from all injuries to them, extending to life and limb; and, in case of their neglect or refusal to comply with the directions of such laws, to have such slave or slaves taken from such owner or owners. They may pass laws to prevent such slaves from being brought into this State as merchandize only. "Section 2.-In the prosecution of slaves for crimes of a higher grade than petit larceny, the legislature shall have no power to deprive them of an impartial trial by a petit jury.

Section 3.--Any person who shall maliciously dismember, or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted, in case the like offence had been inflicted upon a free white person, and on the like proof, except in case of insurrection of such slaves."

Texas papers have been received here to the 1st of January, which state that the election in Texas has resulted in the election of J. P. Henderson

for governor, and A. C. Horton for lieut. governor. There were seventyfive members elected to the legislature, sixty-five of whom are Houston Democrats. It was said that Gen. Houston would not only himself be elected to the United States Senate by a large majority, but that he would also select his colleague.

HAITI:-Americans in the Dominican Service.-The American bark Alert, recently purchased by the Dominican Government, to be fitted as a vessel of war, has been got in readiness, and she mounts twenty 24.. pounders, and two swivels of the same or greater calibre. She is represented as being commanded by a "fine, young, cool, calm, and daring American, and a picked crew of fifty able and prime seamen.' SURINAM :-In consequence of a great scarcity of food in this colony, the governor, R. F. Van Raders, issued an order on the 6th of January last, granting permission to vessels from British North America to import food on the same terms with those from the United States. The order specifically alludes to "the existing scarcity of provisions, principally for the poorer classes and slaves," as the motive for this relaxation of the existing law.

CUBA :-By recent advices from Cuba we have been put in possession of a piece of information of a very singular and somewhat startling character. After all the negotiation, trouble, waste of lives, and expenditure of treasure, which the British government has incurred for the suppression of the slave-trade, and the extinguishment of slavery, we have the remarkable fact that a number of Englishmen, and a very large amount of British capital are employed in the island of Cuba in the encouragement of slavery and the slave-trade. The copper mines of Cuba are superintended by Englishmen, and chiefly worked by English capital, and we find that about 5000 slaves are worked night and day in these mines. Their owners receive twelve dollars per month for their hire, besides which they are fed by the employer. What brilliant encouragement for the perpetuation of slavery; what an exciting stiraulus for pushing the slave-trade, and securing the enormous revenue of 720,000 dollars, and all this by the encouragement of British enter prize and British capital! What the government does, her subjects undo; or in the words of a writer on the

table encouragement of slave trafic.-Jamaica Morning Journal. The prospects of the sugar crops for the present year are represented as indicating great abundance.

CIRCASSIA:-The Times' Correspondent, writing from Trebisond, under date the 5th of January last, communicates the following painful intelligence:" The communications between Anatolia and the Circassian coast are now more frequent than they have been for some time past. It appears beyond a doubt that General Budberg, who commands the Russian forts upon the eastern coast of the Black Sea, has received orders from Prince Woronzoff not to interfere with the traffic of slaves between the Turks and Circassians. The Russian fleet, which in former years remained in the various ports between Kertsch and Bedut Kalch as late as the month of November, in order to prevent communication with Anatolia, and to chase the vessels of the slave-merchants, this year withdrew to Sebastopol as early as September. General Woronzoff has even notified to the chiefs of the Circassian army that Russia would for the future tolerate the sale of their young girls to the Turkish merchants upon condition that they would cease their attacks against the Russian forts, and forbear to cross the Cuban to plunder the Cossack villages, and that they should, moreover, supply those forts with provisions, for which a liberal price would be paid. It is but natural to suppose that General Woronzoff has been induced to make stipulations of the like nature simply from the embarrassed position in which his army in the east of the Caucasus is placed. The war has re-commenced in all its fury upon the borders of the Terek; the Russian forces are there insufficient to prevent the incursions of the mountaineers, a band of whom, well mounted, lately advanced to the environs of the town of Kislar, and caused the greatest terror. The Russian position upon the Cuban, and likewise upon the Black Sea, has been considerably weakened in consequence of an order having arrived to send all the disposable troops of the left wing towards Tschetschina and Daghestan. Unfortunately for the cause of the Circassians, several of their most influential chiefs have suffered themselves to be gained over by the promises and the gold of General Woronzoff. Pschemaff-Bey, one of the four great princes of Circassia, aud who is also descended from one of the most illustrious families of that country, and who made vast sums of money by the sale of the daughters of the common people, has promised General Budberg to use his influence to prevent any hostile attacks against the Russian forts so long as their garrisons shall remain behind their intrenchments, and not molest the Turkish vessels which come from Sinope, Samsun, and Rizeh, to purchase young girls. A dozen slavers have already come from Circassia since November; all were well laden, and were not in any way molested by the Russians. Every steamer which leaves Trebisond for Constantinople takes at least twenty, and frequently a greater number, of these unfortunate creatures to be sold in the capital. The conduct of the Russian consul here is a certain proof that Russia has made this shameful concession. Formerly, when his spies informed him of the arrival of a slaver upon the Turkish coast, he hastened to the Pasha to have the slave-merchant severely punished. Abdallah Pasha, so haughty to all other Europeans, never dared refuse the Russian Consul anything. When Messrs. Bell and Langworth returned from Circassia, the vessels which brought them were burned by order of the Pasha, at the demand, however, of Gersi. At the present time this very man, this same Russian Consul, closes his eyes even when the slavers sail direct into the port of Trebisond. Upwards of twenty Turkish vessels have within the last few weeks gone from this port to Circassia. They, no doubt, wish to take advantage of the time that the Russians leave the field open to them. A fall in the price of Circassian girls in the Constantinople market must speedily follow. For many years past the rich proprietors of harems have paid as much as 30,000 piastres for Circassian girls when embonpoint according to the taste of the Turks.

PORTUGAL:- In our last number, we gave an extract from the speech of the Queen of Portugal relative to the slave-trade. The Chamber of Peers in replying to it, congratulates Her Majesty " on the happy result of the loyal co-operation of the two nations (England and Portugal) for the repression of this infamous traffic-the scandal of religion, opprobrium of humanity, and principal cause of the deplorable decay of the population, industry, and civilization of our vast and valuable African possessions.”

REASONS FOR WITHDRAWING FROM OUR TRADING

CONNECTION WITH THE AMERICAN SLAVE-
HOLDER; AND A PLAN OF DOING SO SUG-

GESTED.

We hail with sincere satisfaction every effort, both in this country and in others, to put an end to slavery and the slave-trade, by means which, in their nature, are legitimate and peaceful. For some time past the attention of the British and Foreign Antislavery Society has been turned to the necessity of meeting the American cotton planter in the British market, by an adequate supply of cotton-wool, grown by free labour, whether in Hindostan or elsewhere. Our readers will remember an elaborate article published in the Anti-slavery Reporter, on the growth of cottonwool in British India, which we know has attracted much attention in influential quarters. We now present our readers with an important paper, which has been recently printed in Manchester, the great seat of our cotton manufactures, and shall be delighted to find that a society, such as that recommended by its writer, is formed in that important town. It will be an important auxiliary to the Anti-slavery movement, and will realize one of the objects which the Anti-slavery Committee has always had in view. We need scarcely say, such a Society will have our best advocacy.

Our great trading connection with the American slaveholder is in the article of Cotton—a trade which had its beginning rather more than fifty years ago. It increased rapidly from year to year. In 1836 it had already become a trade of immense extent; so extensive, indeed, that a commercial gentleman, in Manchester, now of great celebrity, speaking of it in one of his publications of that date, said :-"More than a million of our population depend upon the due supply of this cotton wool for the labour of every succeeding day, and for the regular payment of their weekly wages;" requiring the "punctual arrival, from the United States, of a quantity of raw cotton, averaging fifteen thousand bales weekly, or more than two thousand bales a day,"-"a precious flood of traffic,"-" a golden stream of trade, on which floats not only the wealth, but the hopes and wishes of a great community”— "a commerce unparalleled in magnitude." And yet, unprecedently great as the trade certainly was, when it was spoken of in such terms of admiration, it has now become far greater; so that the number of our population dependent upon it has increased to two millions, at the least, including almost the whole of the great manufacturing community, in and around Manchester. And this wonderful increase of the trade is a proof how truly it may be said, to have been to this community "a golden stream."

But, it is not in the beneficial effects, above described, that we can find any reason for withdrawing from our trading connection with the American slaveholder. It is in another effect,-and one in the highest degree prejudicial. It is in an effect produced in America upon the community which grows the cotton. I.-By this connection, the American slaveholder has been stimulated to perpetuate and extend the system of American slavery; and, in so doing, he has made that system one of peculiar enormity.

To the fact of this deplorable effect of our connection with the American slaveholder, we have had testimony given us in a letter, published in the " Anti-slavery Reporter," of the first of January last, and bearing the signatures of Messrs. J. J. Gurney of Norwich and others. In this letter there is the following passage:"We have already stated, in concurrence with the testimony of some of the most eminent friends of the slave in the United States, and undeniable facts, that the demand for the cotton of that country in Great Britain has been a chief means of perpetuating and extending slavery in

PRICE 5d.

America. Shortly after the declaration of American independence, there was much ground to hope that slavery would not long exist in the Union. The tide of public opinion, which had already led to acts for the abolition of slavery, in several of the Northern States, was directed, with considerable force, against it. There were, at that time, few articles of export produced by slaves, in the States, of great pecuniary value. In 1790, the number of slaves was 657,000, and the cotton exported, 189,000 lbs. In 1843, the number of slaves was estimated at 2,847,810, vigorous means be used to stay this mighty evil, it is impossible to calculate what may be its future extension."

and the cotton exported was 1,081,919,000lbs.; and unless the most

But it is in his exertions to "perpetuate and extend" his slave system, that the American slaveholder has made that system one of peculiar enormity.

To "perpetuate" it, he has enacted laws to stupify and brutalize the negroes,-by keeping their minds in a state of the grossest darkness. And we have a statement of this fact in the letter above named, which says:→

"The slaves are debarred from an acquaintance with even the rudiments of knowledge, lest they should thereby become acquainted with their

wrongs, and learn how to escape from them. To teach a slave to read, is punishable with severe penalties; and, in one slave State, (Lousiana,) DEATH is the legal penalty for a second offence."

To extend this slave system, and to increase the number of his slaves, the American slaveholder has had recourse to the most immoral means,—in what is termed the "Breeding System." Of this, we have the following account, in Messrs. Chambers' Tract on American Slavery.

Tenessee and Missouri, the breeding of slaves is carried on professionally. "In Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Slave breeding is the principal trade within the state, and all means

are employed to render it as productive as possible. The basest passions are elevated to the character of a pursuit. Compulsory unions of negroes and negresses are made by their proprietors; and if such arrangements prove unsatisfactory, the parties are separated, without any regard for decency or feeling. It is impossible, however, to refer with minuteness to the practices which prevail,-it is sufficient to state, that the whole system is an outrage on religion and morals."

And Mr. Featherstonhaugh, in his "Excursion through the Slave States," expresses his apprehension, that the increased culture of cotton, in the new State of Texas, may cause a great extension of this "Breeding System." He says:

"The occupation of Texas by the Americans, where there are so many millions of acres of the most fertile cotton lands, will convert the old slaveholding part of the United States into a disgusting nursery for young slaves; because the black crop will produce more money to the proprietors than any other crop they can cultivate."

But the extension of American slavery has called forth, besides a "Breeding System," an "Internal Slave Trade." Of this latter iniquity, we have an account in a work written by William Jay, an American Judge, and entitled, "Slavery in America."

"The ordinary evils of slavery are in this country greatly aggravated by a cruel and extensive slave trade. Various circumstances have of late years combined to lesson the demand for slave labour in the more northern, and to increase it in the more southern and western portions

of the slave region; while the enlarged consumption of sugar and cotton of this species of labour is unfortunately found in those states which, from their recent settlement, possess immense tracts which are still to be brought into cultivation, and in which, consequently, there now is, and will long continue to be, an urgent demand for slaves. Hence has arisen a prodigious and annually increasing transportation of slaves to the south and west."

is enhancing the market value of slaves. The most profitable employment

"There are no official data from which the amount of this transpor tation can be ascertained; but from facts that have transpired, and from

estimates made at the south, there is reason to believe that it exceeds 30,000 a year! One of the peculiar abominations of this trade is, that its victims are almost exclusively children and youths. Instead of removing whole families, and gangs of negroes, the dealers for the most part, according to their own advertisements, select individuals of both sexes, from twelve to twenty-five years."

The above account was written in the year 1835, and the trade has since then become much more extensive. In Chambers's Tract, published last year, the annual transportation is estimated at 80,000 to 90,000!

This "Internal Slave Trade" and "Breeding System" were spoken of in the following eloquent and indignant language, by the Right Hon. T. B. Macauley, in the parliamentary debate on the sugar question, Feb. 26th, 1845:—

"But that a civilized man, a baptized man, a man proud of being, a citizen of a free state, a man frequenting a Christian church, should breed slaves for exportation, and, if the whole horrible truth must be told, even beget slaves for exportation,-should see children, sometimes his own children, gamboling around him from infancy, should watch their growth, should be familiar with their faces, and should then sell them for four or five hundred dollars a-head, and send them to lead in a remote country, a life which is a lingering death, a life about which the best thing that can be said is that it is sure to be short,-this does, I own, excite a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade which is the curse of the African coast. And mark!-I am not speaking of any rare case,—of any instance of eccentric depravity,—I am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between Dublin and Liverpool, or the trade

in coals between the Tyne and the Thames."

We have the following summary of the system of American slavery, given us in the before-named work of William Jay, the American judge:

"Such is American slavery-a system which classes with the beasts of the field, over whom dominion has been given to man, an intelligent and accountable being, the instant his Creator has breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Over this infant heir to immortality no mother has a right to watch-no father may guide his feeble steps, check his wayward appetites, and train him for future usefulness, happiness, and glory. Torn from his parents and sold in the market, he soon finds himself labouring amongst strangers, under the whip of a driver, and his task augmenting with his ripening strength. Day after day, and year after year, he is driven to the cotton or sugar field, as the ox to the furrow. No hope of reward lightens his toil—the subject of insult, the victim of brutality, the laws of his country afford him no redress; his wife, such only in name, may at any moment be dragged from his side; his children heirs only of his misery and degradation, are but articles of merchandise; his mind, stupified by his oppressor, is wrapped in darkness; his soul, no man careth for it; his body, worn with stripes and toil, is at length committed to the earth, like the brute that perisheth."

The foregoing extracts may perhaps be considered sufficient to prove, that by our trading connection the American slaveholder has been stimulated to perpetuate and extend the system of American slavery; and that in so doing he has made that system one of peculiar enormity. We have here, then, a strong reason for our withdrawing from this connection.

We may now proceed to notice another reason, and a most serious reason, too, for our withdrawal from this trading connection.

We have seen the highly prejudicial effect it has produced, and which is so totally contrary to the proper and beneficial effects of commerce. This may lead us to suspect there is something in it different from an ordinary and lawful commercial intercourse. And we shall find, on further examination, that such is the fact. The American slaveholder is a person who obtains his cotton by the perpetration of crime, by carrying on a criminal system. This we know; and, knowing it, our trading connection with him cannot be right.

II.-It is a Connection involving us in Guilt.

It seems clear that, in this case, we must apply the same moral rule that should be applied to a trading connection with the smuggler or the thief, or with any one that is known to keep up his stock-in-trade by criminal means. If, however, we purchase goods, knowing them to be smuggled or stolen, we become aiders and abetters of the principal, and participators with him in the crime. In like manner, if we purchase American cotton, knowing the wretched system under which it is produced, we become aiders and abettors of the American slaveholder, and participators with him in the criminality of the system of American slavery. And in the consequences of this criminality, not only the merchant, the spinner, and the manufacturer must participate, but our whole

manufacturing community,—and so, indeed, the nation itself. We ought, therefore, to withdraw from our trading connection with the American slaveholder, because it is a connection involving us in his guilt.

We will now briefly notice one reason more.

III.-By our not making any effort to withdraw from this connection, we dishonour the Christian Religion.

In the Southern States of America, the Christian religion is fearfully dishonoured by the conduct of the various religious denominations in reference to this iniquitous slave system. Most of the Christian churches there acquiesce in it, and share in its profits. In the Christian Observer for November, 1845, there is an article under the head of "The American Churches the Bulwark of Slavery," and an extract is therein given from the "History of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the United States," by Dean Wilberforce, now Bishop of Oxford. In this extract Dean Wilberforce says "What witness, as yet, has been born by the church in those States, against this almost universal sin? How has she fulfilled her vocation? She raises no voice against the predominant evil; she palliates it in theory; and in practice she shares in it.” There is also testimony enough that this is equally the case with

other denominations.

But we, also, are connected with this American slave system, and may indeed be said to share in its profits. And what is our conduct in reference to it? Is not the Christian religion dishonoured by us, if, amidst our professions of Christianity, we can behold our yearly increasing connection with the American slaveholder, be cognizant of its stimulating effect in perpetuating, extending, and rendering more atrocious the system of American slavery, be convinced of its involving us in guilt-and yet make no effort to withdraw from it?

But, although there be the most serious and weighty reasons for withdrawing from our trading connection with the American slaveholder, we must remember that it is a question which has passed without public regard for more than fifty years; and that it is one which affects the subsistence of almost the whole of a great community. The consequence is that an immediate withdrawal would be found impracticable, and if attempted on a large scale, would be productive of much suffering and crime. A method of gradual withdrawal seems to be the only one which can now be adopted. It may be well, therefore, to have—

A PLAN SUGGESTED.

There is a plan recommended, "as one means of discountenancing slavery," by Messrs. J. J. Gurney, of Norwich, and others, in the letter from which quotations have already been made. In that letter it is said—

"Shall we then continue to uphold and furnish an inducement for the maintenance of this vast system of crime and misery which we profess to deplore and abhor? Humanity, justice, and religion forbid us so to do; and we therefore confidently cherish the hope that, as one means of discountenancing slavery, many of our countrymen and countrywomen will now be found willing and determined, as far as in them lies, to relinquish the use of American slave-grown cotton."

Whatever effect, however, this plan might have in discountenancing slavery, it would be totally inefficient for the accomplishment of our object. Our cotton trade is principally an export trade; and for us to refuse to use American cotton for our own individual consumption at home, whilst our spinners and manufacturers are using it in such immense and yearly increasing quantities for exportation, could certainly have no perceptible effect in enabling us to withdraw from our connection with the American slaveholder.

Our efforts must be directed to our supply of cotton.

We must endeavour, earnestly and unceasingly endeavour, to obtain from some other and less polluted source, a supply of cotton cheaper than the American, and of suitable quality.

Nothing like a general and vigorous attempt to do this has ever yet been made by us. Some Government experiments to improve our supply of free labour cotton from India, have been going on for the last five years. And yet this community has manifested scarcely the slightest interest in them. True it is, that five years ago, a few gentlemen met the East India Directors, in Manchester, to witness an improved mode of cleaning Indian cotton; and two years ago, a memorial from the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, urging the improvement of Indian cotton, was sent to Sir Henry Hardinge, on his appointment as Governor General; and also, three months ago, a deputation from the Manchester Commercial