Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

Such abstraction of the African population from their country, would give a fearful impulse to an internal slave trade in Africa. The unfeeling chiefs on the coast, the most profligate, debased, and ferocious of mankind, would by fraud, force, or purchase, in the character of emigration agents, drag as many to the coast as they pleased and might be wanted; and while they did not actually sell, nor the European, technically speaking, buy, the people so brought from interior parts, these chiefs, by simply fixing high port charges and fiscal regulations for revenue purposes, would obtain from the transfer of the people—a transfer which these people could not resist or oppose—a much higher income than they before received from the bona fide sale of slaves; and with which income they could, and they would, purchase European articles from European traders, to enable them to furnish additional and future supplies.

In this way, millions after millions of Africans—for millions after millions would most unquestionably be demanded—would certainly be carried away. The poor creatures, unable to pay their own passage, would no more be their own masters from the moment they got on board the foreign ship, than if they were really slaves.

Such a traffic as this on the part of foreign nations, Great Britain could neither denounce nor oppose while she herself resorted to a similar course. In one way only she could reasonably resist and oppose it; namely, by urging that she only took people from her own African settlements, which are free, to her West Indian settlements, which are free also; while foreign nations, such as Brazils, had no possessions of any kind on the coast of Africa, and at the same time retained slavery in their dominions. Great Britain could only urge this plea in opposition to such proceedings on the part of other powers; but would such reasoning, however proper and just, be admitted or listened to? I do not think that it would. The consequences of the adoption of such a course by the nation alluded to, or by any other European power which has Tropical colonies, (France, Spain, Denmark, and Holland have,) will prove fatal to the best interests of Great Britain.

Already the people in the Brazils have begun to moot the question—that they ought in sincerity to put an end to the African slave trade, and in lieu thereof to bring labourers from Africa as free people. The supply of such that will be required, both to maintain the present numbers of the black population and to extend cultivation in that country, will certainly be great and lasting. The disparity of the sexes in Brazils is undoubtedly great. In Cuba it is in the proportion of 275,000 males to 150,000 females, and, amongst the whole, the number of young persons is small. To keep up the population only in these countries will probably require 130,000 people from Africa yearly; while interest will lead the agricultural capitalist in those countries to bring only effective labourers, and these as a matter of course chiefly males; which will tend to perpetuate the evils arising from the inequality of the sexes, and thus continue, to a period the most remote, the demand from Africa, and consequently a continued expense, equal perhaps to £30 each, for every effective free labourer brought from that continent.

It is thus obvious that African immigration in any shape, and to any nation, is a most serious matter. Unless the subject is considered in all its bearings, with reference not only to the present but to future times, and above all with reference to the steps which France, Portugal, or any other European power, may take in Africa, and also with reference to the steps which Great Britain may or may not take with regard to that great continent—most embarrassing results must follow; while, on the steps which may be taken by other nations, the British colonial interests henceforward depend.

There remains but one certain and efficient way to prevent fatal evils and destructive results, and that is the simple, and ready, and rational course; namely, to oppose free labour within Africa, and the West Indies and the East Indies, to African labour, whether free or bond, abstracted from her soil and carried by foreign nations to distant parts of the globe. In   Africa, where the soil, the climate, the productions are equal and the same, one-sixth part of the capital in labour would obtain labour equally efficient, nay more efficient, because removing Africans from their own country, either as slaves or freemen, even to other Tropical climates, must be attended with considerable risk and loss.

Produce, supplied cheaper from Africa than it can be obtained from the places above alluded to, would speedily and completely terminate, not only the foreign African slave trade, but the slave trade and slavery in Africa itself. This is the only safe, secure, and certain way to accomplish the great object. It is safe because it is just; it is secure because it is profitable to all concerned, the giver as well as the receiver of the boon.

It is neither prudent, patriotic, nor safe, to attempt to confine the productions of colonial commodities to the present British Tropical possessions; while the production of these in other countries and places will be increased by the capital and industry of other nations, and even by British capital and skill, more especially while capital cannot find room for profitable employment in England. During the war, Great Britain exported to the continent of Europe colonial produce to the extent of five millions yearly; and which in every case, but especially in bad seasons, when large supplies of continental grain were necessary for the food of her population, always secured a large balance of trade in her favour, and which would again be the case if she adopts the course here pointed out.

Adopting the course recommended, Great Britain at an early day would be able to supply, not only her own extensive markets, both home and colonial, with sugar, coffee, cotton, and dye-stuffs, &c. &c., but, in every other market of the world, she would come in for a large share of the external traffic. Her ships and her seamen would carry, both to her own and to foreign markets, the productions raised by British subjects and British capital, instead of carrying from foreign port to foreign port, as her ships and her seamen do at this moment, the productions raised by foreign people, capital, and industry. Great additional wealth would thus be drawn to this country; Tropical produce of every description would be obtained at a reasonable, yet remunerating rate; now, extensive, and profitable markets would be opened up to our manufactures. They would become and remain prosperous; and all classes of the community would be benefited and relieved. Prosperity would increase the power of the people to consume; increased consumption would produce increased revenue; and the government would be relieved from unceasing applications for relief, which, under existing circumstances, they have it not in their power to give.

The point under consideration also, important as it is, becomes still more important when the fact is considered, that if Great Britain does not set about the work to raise that produce in Africa, and command the trade proceeding from it, other nations most assuredly will; when she will lose, not only the advantages which that cultivation and trade would give her, but that trade also which she at present holds with her own colonies; for it is plain that the proceedings of foreign countries, such as have been adverted to, both in Africa, America, and other places, would cover the British colonies with poverty and ruin.

The geographical position of Africa is peculiarly favourable for commerce with all other countries, and especially with Great Britain and her vast and varied possessions. Africa, or rather Tropical Africa, is equally distant from America, and Europe, and the most civilized parts of Asia, besides her proximity to Arabia, and, by means of the Red Sea, with Egypt and the Mediterranean. Africa, whether we look to the Cape of Good Hope or the Red Sea, is the impregnable halfway house to India—the quarter to make good the loss of an Indian empire. She has numerous good harbours, many navigable rivers, a most fruitful soil, valuable productions of every kind, known in every other quarter of the Tropical world, besides some peculiarly her own; and a climate and a country, take it all in all, equal, if not superior, to any other Tropical quarter of the world in point of salubrity. Her population are indeed ignorant and debased; but generally speaking, and especially over large portions of her surface, they are even more active, and intelligent, and industrious, than the Indians of America, or the people in some parts of   Asia are, or than the population of Europe was, before the arms of Rome coerced and civilized them. Why, then, is Africa overlooked and neglected?

Let us attend to the following facts. They are, both in a political and commercial point of view, of great importance, as showing the progress of the opinions and efforts of foreign nations as directed towards Africa.

The great energies of France are, it is well known, at present strongly directed to the more important points of Tropical Africa, for the purpose of extending colonization, cultivation, and commerce therein, in order that she may thereby obtain supplies of colonial produce from the application of her own capital, and at the same time, and by this measure, to raise up a more extensive commercial marine, and consequently a more powerful and commanding navy.

Under such circumstances, the real question to be solved is—Shall Great Britain secure and keep, as she may do, the superiority in Tropical cultivation, commerce, and influence? or, Shall foreign countries be suffered to acquire this supremacy, not only as regards themselves specifically, but even to the extent of supplying British markets with the produce of their fields, their labour, and their capital, to the abandonment and destruction of her own?

This is the true state of the case; and the result is a vital question as regards the future power and resources of Great Britain.

France is already securely placed at the mouth of the Senegal, and at Goree, extending her influence eastward and north-eastward from both places. She has a settlement at Albreda, on the Gambia, a short distance above St Mary’s, and which commands that river. She has just formed a settlement close by Cape Palmas, and another at the mouth of the Gaboon, and a third by this time near the chief mouth of the Niger, in the Bight of Benin. She has fixed herself at Massuah and Buro, on the west shore of the Red Sea, commanding the inlets into Abyssinia. She is endeavouring to fix her flag at Brava and the mouth of the Jub; and she has just taken permanent possession of the important island of Johanna, situated in the centre of the northern outlet of the Mozambique channel, by which she acquires the command of that important channel. Her active agents are placed in Southern Abyssinia, and are traversing the borders of the Great Bahr-el-Abiad; while the northern shores of Africa will speedily be her own.

Spain has planted herself in the island of Fernando Po, which commands all the outlets of the Niger, and the rivers from Cameroons to the equator; and from which she can readily obtain at any time any number of people from the adjacent coasts for her West Indian possessions, either as slaves or freemen.

About six years ago, the government of Portugal appointed a commission to enquire into the state and condition of her once fine and still important colonies in Tropical Africa, and to report upon the best course to adopt to render them beneficial to the mother country. They have reported and wisely recommended, that Portuguese knowledge and capital should, as far as possible, be again sent to Africa, in order to instruct, enlighten, and cultivate these valuable possessions; and instead of allowing, as heretofore, labour in slaves to be abstracted from Africa, that native labourers should be retained and employed in Africa itself; and further, that it should to the utmost be aided and directed by European skill, capital, and labour. Thus, fourteen degrees of latitude on the east coast, and twenty degrees of latitude on the west coast, will, at an early day, be set free from the slave trade. From these points the Brazil markets were chiefly supplied with slaves; but Brazils being now separated from Portugal, the latter has and can have no interest in allowing the former to carry on the slave trade from her African dominions, but quite the reverse.

The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope changed the course of eastern commerce. The exertions of Portugal in the manner proposed, will now, and most certainly and severely, affect Tropical productions and commerce in every market. In this case, England ought to encourage and support Portugal, and, by following her footsteps in other eligible parts of Africa, share in the advantages which such a state of things, and the cultivation and improvement of Africa, is certain to produce.

The Iman of Muscat, the sovereign   of Zanzibar, has lately put an end to the slave trade in his dominions in Africa, extending northwards from the Portuguese boundary eight degrees of latitude on the eastern coast. His envoy, who was lately in England, was so delighted with the treatment which he received, and with all that he heard and saw here, that he has influenced his master to carry out sincerely the views and objects recommended by England. I have in my possession a most interesting account of the country, extending into the interior of Africa, from the coast opposite Zanzibar all the way to the great lake Maravi. The country is intersected with noble rivers, one especially which issues out of the lake; is generally healthy and well cultivated, especially as the lake is approached. The population are generally of Arabian descent, industrious, and clothed. A wide field, therefore, for commercial operations is open in this quarter.

The powerful sovereign of Dahomey has agreed to abolish the slave trade. Independent of his considerable dominions, his fine country was one of the greatest high-roads for the slave caravans from the interior. He has received, welcomed, and encouraged the Wesleyan missionaries lately sent to that quarter. The missionaries from this society, and also one from the Church Missionary Society, have penetrated to Abekuta, a town containing 40,000 inhabitants, and about 106 miles north-east of Lagos, and north of Benin. The country, immediately after quitting the coast, becomes most fertile, pleasant, and healthy, as all that country to the north of the Formosa is well known to be. The population are eager for instruction; they are comparatively industrious and civilized; they manufacture all their necessary agricultural implements, bits for bridles, hoes, &c., from their own iron; they tan their own leather, and manufacture therefrom saddles, bridles, shoes, &c.

The great sovereign of Ashantee has also received with royal honours, and welcomed, the ministers of the gospel, encouraged them, and listened to them in the most gratifying manner. The Almamy of Teembo—a state which commands the fine districts around the Niger in its early course, and the roads from populous interior parts on the east to the western coast—has lately evinced the strongest desire to extend cultivation and commerce in lieu of the slave trade, and to have a ready communication with Europeans, and especially with the English. In other portions of Africa important movements are also going on, most gratifying to the friends of humanity and religion.

The United States of America, as a nation, is about to incorporate with her dominions the whole coast of Africa on Cape Palmas to the borders of the Gallinas—a fertile and healthy part of that continent, and wherein several settlements have of late years been made by the free people of colour from those states. This effected, there will hardly remain a spot of any consequence in Tropical Africa worth looking after for Great Britain to plant her foot, either for the purpose of obtaining labourers for her West Indian colonies, or to extend agriculture and commerce with Africa. The present British Tropical African possessions have been, and are, very badly selected for any one of the purposes alluded to, or for extending political power and influence in Africa. Still much more may be made of them than has ever hitherto been done.

But there is a still higher and more important consideration as regards Africa alone—the eternal salvation of her people. This consideration is addressed to the rulers of a Christian nation. The appeal cannot fall on deaf ears. The debt which Great Britain owes to Africa, it is undeniable, is incalculably great. The sooner it is put in course of liquidation the better. To spread Christianity throughout Africa can only atone for the past. Our duty as Christians, and our interests as men, call on us to undertake the work. It is the cause, the safety, the improvement, and the salvation of a large portion of the human race; it is the cause of our country, the cause of our colonies, the cause of truth, the cause of justice, the cause of Christianity, the cause and the pleading of a Christian nation—and a cause like this cannot plead in vain.

To secure these important objects no great or immediate expenditure is necessary; nay, if properly gone about, a saving in the present African expenditure may be effected.

James Macqueen.

London, 3d May 1844.

NARRATION OF CERTAIN UNCOMMON THINGS THAT DID FORMERLY HAPPEN TO ME, HERBERT WILLIS, B.D

It had pleased Heaven in the year 1672, when I had finished my studies in Magdalen College, Oxford, whereof I was a Demy, and had taken my degree of bachelor of arts in the preceding term, to visit me with so severe an affliction of fever, which many took at first for the commencement of the small-pox, that I was recommended by the physicians, when the malady had abated, to return to my father’s house and recover my strength by diet and exercise. This I was fain to do; and having hired a small horse of Master John Nayler in the corn market, to take me as far as to the mansion of a gentleman, an ancient friend of my father’s, who had a house near unto Reading in Berkshire, and in those troubled times, when no man knew whereunto things might turn from day to day, did keep himself much retired. I bade adieu to the university with a light heart but a weakened habit of body, and turned my horse’s head to the south. I performed the journey without accident in one day; but the exertion thereof had so exhausted my strength, that Mr Waller, (which was the name of my father’s friend, and of kin to the famous poet Edmund Waller, Esquire, who hath been ever in such favour with our governors and kings,) perceiving I was nigh discomfited, did press me to go to my chamber without delay. He was otherwise very gracious in his reception of me, and professed great amity to me, as being the son of his fast friend and companion; but yet I marked, as it were, a cloud that lay obscure behind his external professions, as if he was uneasy in his mind, and was not altogether pleased with having a stranger within his gates. Howbeit I thanked him very heartily for his hospitality, and betook myself to the chamber that was assigned for my repose. It was a pretty, small room, whereof I greatly admired the fashion; and the furnishing thereof was extreme gay, for the bed hangings were of bright crimson silk, and on a table was placed a mirror of true Venetian glass. Also, there were chests of mahogany wood, and other luxurious devices, which my weariness did not hinder me from observing; but finally I was overcome by my weakness, and I threw myself on the bed without removing my apparel, and sustained as I believe, though I have no certain warranty thereof, an access of deliquium or fainting. When I did recover my senses after this interval of suspended faculty, (whether proceeding from sleep or the other cause above designated,) I lay for many minutes revolving various circumstances in my mind. I resolved, if by any means my bodily powers were thereunto sufficient, to depart on the morrow, and borrow one of Mr Waller’s horses to convey me on my way, for I was uneasy to be thought an intruder; but when I had settled upon this in my mind, a new incident occurred which altered the current of my thoughts, for I perceived a slight noise at the door of my chamber as of one stealthily turning the handle, and I lay, without making any motion, to watch whereunto this proceeding would tend. The door was put gently open, and a figure did enter the room, so disguised with fantastical apparel, that I was much put to it to guess what the issue would be. It was of a woman, tall and majestical, with a red turbaund round her head, and over her shoulders a shawl much bedizened with needlework. Her gown was of green cloth, and I was made aware by the sound, as she passed along the floor, that the heels of her shoes were more than commonly high. With this apparition, of which I took only a very rapid observation through my half-closed eyelids, I was greatly astonished; for she was an exact resemblance to those bold Egyptian queans who were at first called Bohemians, but are nothing better than thieves and vagabonds, if indeed they be not the chosen people of the prince of darkness himself. She looked carefully all round the room, and after opening one of the drawers of mahogany wood, and taking something   therefrom which I could not discern, she approached to the side of my bed, and looked earnestly upon me as I lay. I could not keep up the delusion any longer, and opened my eyes. She continued gazing steadfastly upon me without alteration of her countenance or uttering any word, whether of apology or explanation; and I was so held in by the lustre of her large eyes, and the fixed rigidity of her features, that for some time I was unable to give utterance to my thoughts.

“Woman,” I said at last, “what want you with me?”

“Your help, if you will be gracious to poor mourners such as we.”

I interrogated her much and curiously as to what service she required at my hands; for I had a scrupulosity to promise any thing to one whose external made me think her a disciple of Mahomet, as those gipsies are said to be. After much hesitating, she could not conceal from me that she was in this disguise for some special and extraordinary purpose; nevertheless, she condescended on no particulars of her state or condition; but when I finally promised to satisfy her demand, if it might be done by a Christian gentleman, and a poor candidate for the holy ministry, she cautioned me not to be startled by whatever I should see, and beckoned me to follow her—the which I did in no easy frame of mind. Opening a little door which I had not seen when I took observation of the apartment, she disappeared down two or three steps, where I pursued the slight sound of her footfall; for there was great darkness, so that I could see nothing. We went, as I conjectured, through several passages of some length, till finally she paused; and knocked very gently three times at a door. The door was speedily opened; and in answer to a question of my guide, whether godly Mr Lees was yet arrived, a voice answered that he was there, and expecting us with impatience. When I passed through the door, I found myself in a small chamber, dimly lighted by one small lamp, which was placed upon a table by the side of a bed; and when I looked more fixedly I thought I perceived the figure of a person stretched on the bed, but lying so fixed and still, that I marvelled whether it was alive or dead. At the foot of the bed stood a venerable old man, in the dress of a clergyman of our holy church, with a book open in his hand, and my strange guide led me up to where he was standing, and whispered to him, but so that I could hear her words, “This gentleman hath promised to assist us in this matter.”

But hereupon I interposed with a few words to the same revered divine. “Sir,” I said, “I would be informed wherefore I am summoned hither, and in what my assistance is needful?”

“He hath not then been previously informed?” he said to the Egyptian; and receiving some sign of negation from her, he closed the book, and leading me apart into a corner of the apartment, discovered the matter in a very pious and edifying manner.

“It is to be godfather in the holy rite of baptism, to one whom it is our duty, as Christian men, to rescue from the dangerous condition of worse than unregenerate heathenism.”