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LETTER FROM J. H. B. LATROBE, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE AM. CCL. Soc.

five years from the date of exchange of the ratification, and afterwards until one or the other party shall signify a wish to terminate it.

Admitting for the occasion, the

time of its adoption, "with the imperfect or erroneous information then possessed," the report insists that the experience of twelve years has demonstrated the fallacy of the opinion that the employment of numerous cruisers on the coast of Africa is the most efficient mode of suppressing the slave trade. A calculation is then made, showing the comparative force and attendant expense of the British and American squadrons, estimating the latter at four ships, carrying eighty guns, and costing, annually, about eight hun

BALTIMORE, June 23, 1854. Hon. James A. Pearce, U. S. Senate : MY DEAR SIR-I find in the New York Times of Thursday a confidential report of the Committee on foreign affairs of the Senate, re-expediency of the measure at the commending the abrogation of the 8th article of the Ashburton treaty, by which the parties mutually stipulate that each shall prepare, equip, and maintain in service on the coast of Africa, a sufficient and adequate squadron, or naval force of vessels, of suitable numbers, and descriptions, to carry in all, not less than 80 guns, to enforce separately and respectively the laws, rights and obligations of each of the two countries, for the suppression of the slave trade; the said squadrons to be independent of each other, but the two Governments stipulating, never-dred thousand dollars. The report theless, to give such orders to the officers commanding their respective forces, as shall enable them most effectually to act in concert and co-operation, upon mutual consultation, as exigencies may arise. for the attainment of the true object of this article, copies of all such orders to be communicated by each Government to the other, respectively." This article the treaty further provides shall be in force for

then admits that the health of the station compares favorably with that of other stations; refers to the fact that a like treaty between Great Britain and France once bound the latter to keep twenty-six vessels on the coast, for the same purposenumber now reduced to twelve; states that the annual joint expenditure of England, France and the United States. on this account, is about $7,400,000; quotes from the

a

report of a select committee of the nection with African colonization, British House of Commons, to show and with the present and future that the exportation of slaves from relations of the colonies, now conAfrica, which in 1842 was 30,000, stituting the Republic of Liberia; so had increased, in 1847, to 84,000; much so, indeed, that I have thought extracts a portion of the testimony that, as President of the American of Admiral Sir Charles Hotham, of Colonization Society, I might, withthe African station, to prove that his out an unbecoming intrusion into operations had neither stopped nor public affairs, present to you, as the materially checked the slave trade, Representative in the Senate of the which, in his opinion, was entirely United States of the State of which dependent on the commercial de- I am a citizen, and as the personal mand for slaves, and had little con- friend of very many years, such connection with the squadron, whose siderations as long acquaintance operations he looked upon as with the subject has suggested in a futile," informs us that in twelve matter wherein the interests of the years our squadron had captured but Society that has honored me with fourteen vessels, and then says: the position I occupy are deeply "The African slave trade has, it is involved. Nor, in addressing you believed, been entirely suppressed on this occasion, have I been unin Brazil; and in this hemisphere, influenced by the fact that the State the remaining colonies of Spain, of Maryland, whose Senator you Cuba, and Porto Rico, are its only are, has upheld Colonization from marts. Your committee think that, its origin; that she has had her if the American flag be still em- own colony of "Maryland in Liployed in this nefarious traffic now bera," now an independent govprohibited by every christian nation, ernment, on that coast; and that and surreptitiously tolerated by her Legislature have, for the last Spain alone, the abuse can be more twenty two years, contributed, anefficiently corrected by the employ-nually, ten thousand dollars to the ment of our cruisers in the vicinity cause. of those islands."

The report concludes with repudiating, in the strongest terms, any intention of relaxing, in any degree, the stringency of our legislation against the slave trade, saying that the abrogation of the 8th article of the treaty will have no other effect than to enable the Executive to employ the force, stationed on the African coast, at any other point where its services will be more useful, while we would still be bound by the treaty of Ghent to promote "the desirable object of the entire abolition of the slave-trade."

The measure is certainly of great importance in all its aspects; and most especially interesting in con

The time was, we all know, when the slave trade was a legitimate branch of commerce, in which English and American capital was largely invested, and in which Englishmen and Americans embarked, without loss of reputation or social position. But it was at all times, nefarious in principle, and horrible in its details, and so, gradually, came all men to think. Wilberforce and his associates brought the British Government to prohibit it mainly by exposing the construction and stowage of a slaver, and the sufferings of the wretched cargo on the transit from Africa to America, known as "the middle passage." In the United States it became unlawful in 1808.

The treaty of Ghent, in 1814, || and attoned for. Heretofore, napledged the Government to promote tions had been seen banded together its abolition; and on the 15th of for selfish purposes: now they were May, 1820, three years after the found stipulating with each other first colony was planted in Liberia, to furnish ships and men to enforce an act of Congress declared it a principle of the moral law, in piracy. Among civilized commu-behalf of those whose weakness was nities, great truths once sown, their chief claim, and who had, always germinate. Their fruition absolutely, nothing to bestow in remay be slow, but they never perish. turn for the protection they received. Wilberforce stood, at first, almost The spectacle was a noble one, and alone against the slave trade. Were so all good men esteemed it. If it he living now, he would find the involved the expenditure of money world upon his side. He would and the risk of life, so much the find, too, that at no period of the greater was its merit; though, esinterval, had there been any retro-timating both in the largest way, gression in the public mind upon the subject. The first threatening of a backward step is the proposition now before the Senate-not that such a step is intended; but results and intentions are often very different things.

Prior to the Ashburton treaty, England and the United States had acted without concert against the slave trade. The captives taken from the slavers by their respective cruisers were landed, as the case might be, either at Sierra Leone or Monrovia. France and England, it seems from the report of the committee, were at that time mu tually bound to maintain a stipulated number of vessels of each nation on the coast; and this, and the existing condition of the slave trade, doubtless suggested a like agreement between the United States and England, which was made, accordingly, by the ratification of the 8th article of the Ashburton treaty. These measures on the part of three great nations were most important steps forward, in the vindication, of a great truth-that the abstraction from their homes of an unoffending people, to serve against their will as slaves, in a strange land, was a wrong to be remedied

far more had been expended and risked, without comment, for causes and objects that might well be counted insignificant in comparison.

The committee on foreign relations express their belief that, except in Cuba and Porto Rico, the slave trade has been suppressed, and that it would be more advisable, in view of its final extinguishment, to watch these islands, than to watch the coast of Africa. But it is much to be feared that the committee are in error about the main fact. Admitting them to be right, however, surely it would be more humaneand the principal question here is one of humanity-to prevent the slaver's voyage which can best be done on the African coast, than to catch him with cargo on board on the coast of Cuba. It would at all events, save the lives of the large percentage that die on "the middle passage.' It saved, as the committee tell us, the suffering to which the transit would have subjected some 5,000 human beings, the cargoes of the fourteen slavers captured by the African squadron. It might, not improbably, obviate, in some degree, the native forays and wars, undertaken in Africa that slaves may be procured for shipment to America;