No. III.

Mr. Hudson to Viscount Palmerston.

(Extract.)

[THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT COULD EASILY SUPPRESS THE SLAVE-TRADE IF IT CHOSE-EXECUTION OF ITS LAWS WANTED.]

Rio de Janeiro, February 20th, 1850.

A few simple measures of police on the part of the Brazilian government, would most effectually check and stop the Brazilian slave-trade. It is absurd to say that the Brazilian government cannot suppress slave-trade when we see them suppress a rebellion which had great ramifications and great popular support in one of the wealthiest and strongest provinces of this empire.

It is ridiculous to maintain that the Brazilian slave-trade, which is confined almost exclusively to 300 miles of the Brazilian coast, north and south of the Brazilian capital, and the extreme limits of which do not exceed one day's sail from Rio de Janeiro, cannot be greatly checked, if not entirely suppressed, by a proper exercise of the Imperial authority, and by due vigilance on the part of the Imperial magistracy and police.

But no Brazilian administration has hitherto adopted any efficient measure whatever for the suppression of the Brazilian slave-trade.

It is true, that no Brazilian government can check slavetrade so long as they permit their minor authorities to receive with impunity a bounty upon every slave imported; it is equally true that no Brazilian government can suppress slave-trade so long as slave-ships are permitted to be armed, manned, fitted, and despatched to the coast of Africa for slaves, in broad day, and with the cognizance and permission of the Brazilian authorities, not only in the out-ports, but under the eye of the Imperial government, in the harbour of the capital of the empire.

As long, therefore, as this notorious and public assistance and connivance of the Brazilian authorities is tolerated by the Brazilian government, it is absurd to suppose that the planting

of colonies of Europeans in Brazil can have any other effect than to foster and encourage slave-trade.

The excuse of the Brazilian government for this open violation of the law of Brazil, and of the Convention which subsists between Great Britain and Brazil for the suppression of the slave-trade, is, that the existing Brazilian laws for the trial of the offence of slave-trading are insufficient; and his Excellency recommends the adoption of such legislative measures as will overcome existing difficulties, and enable the Brazilian government to fulfil the obligations which Brazil contracted with Great Britain in the Convention of November 23, 1826.

It is not so much new laws for the suppression of slavetrade which Brazil requires, as the due execution of those which exist.*

No. IV.

Mr. Hudson to Viscount Palmerston.

(Extract.)

[MORAL AND ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVE-TRADE AND SLAVERY-OPEN CONNIVANCE IN SLAVE-TRADE-NATIONAL DIGNITY.]

Rio de Janeiro, February 20th, 1850.

Your Lordship will receive by this packet a despatch enclosing a Report which the Minister of the Empire has presented to the Brazilian chambers, and upon which I have had the honour to offer some remarks to your Lordship.

It will be seen from the Report how the connivance of Brazilian authorities in the importation of slaves, contrary to the

* A Brazilian writer has lately said: "It was said that there was an innate inward predilection for slave-labour, so strong that it was utterly beyond the strength and power of any Brazilian government to put an end to the traffic. Nevertheless, when the government wished the traffic to cease, it ceased. I do not now inquire what were the causes which led to this suppression. I record the fact, and no one can deny it, that the African slavetrade ceased, when the government of our country wished that it should cease."-0 Brazil e os Brazileiros, por Antonio Augusto da Costa Aguiar. Santos, 1862.

treaty stipulations of Brazil, to Brazilian public law, and to every principle of justice and humanity, has at last produced its fruits in a settled contempt for international engagements, a disregard for their own law, and a great lack of private morality.

Brazil having fostered the importation and sale of barbarians, is astonished to find her native population of the interior almost as barbarous as those of the wilds of Africa.

Her government sends physicians to districts where the people are decimated by small-pox, with instructions as to their cure and treatment; the physicians are treated as assassins and their remedies as poisons.

Her government establishes schools of primary instruction in a population of 5,500,000 souls, and the Minister reports that 35,608 persons are receiving instruction in them.

Brazil possesses a most fertile soil, yet her agricultural staples are reduced to two, and her agricultural implements to one, the hoe.

In the face of these evidences of the effects of slave-trade, and in spite of the most direct and flagrant violation of the solemn treaty-engagements of the Crown of Brazil respecting that traffic, the harbour of the Brazilian capital is open to ships, which with perfect impunity, and under the very eye of the government, fit out, go for, and return from the coast of Africa with slaves, as your Lordship will perceive from the enclosed returns. And yet, in the note which I have received from Senhor Paulino,* his Excellency persists in considering that the "national dignity" is wounded by the capture and destruction of such a floating shambles as the Santa Cruz.

It is to be lamented that his Excellency's sense of the national honour of his country is not as keen as it is respecting her "national dignity," a "dignity" which is attempted to be maintained at the expense of her honour, the deterioration of her interests, and the gradual but certain degradation of her people.

* Now Viscount Uruguay, Senator and Councillor of State.

No. V.

Viscount Palmerston to Mr. Hudson.

[CONTINUED VIOLATION BY THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT OF ITS TREATYENGAGEMENTS, AND MODERATION OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.]

Foreign Office, April 13th, 1850.

Sir, I have received your despatch of the 20th of February last and its enclosures, upon the subject of the seizure of the Brazilian slave-vessel Santa Cruz, by Commander Schomberg, of Her Majesty's ship Cormorant, on the 5th of January last, to the southward of the port of Rio de Janeiro.

I have to instruct you to present a note to the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs, saying, that Her Majesty's govern ment have received copies of the correspondence which has passed on this subject between the Brazilian government and yourself, and that they entirely approve the note which you addressed to Senhor Paulino on the 19th of February last; and that you are further instructed to request the Brazilian government calmly and seriously to consider the extreme nature of the rights which Great Britain has acquired against Brazil by the deliberate, systematic, and long-continued violation by the government of Brazil, of the treaty-engagements between the Crown of Brazil and the Crown of Great Britain; and you will say, that Her Majesty's government feel satisfied that the Brazilian government will, upon reflection, do justice to the great moderation and forbearance which the British government has hitherto displayed, by availing itself of those rights only in so limited a degree. But you will add, that Her Majesty's government hope and trust that the government of Brazil will henceforward, by a full, faithful, and efficient execution of its treaty-engagements, relieve Her Majesty's government from the necessity of proceedings, which, however much they may be justified and rendered

necessary by the conduct pursued up to the present time by the government of Brazil, are nevertheless very painful to Her

Majesty's government.

I am, &c.

(Signed)

PALMERSTON.

No. VI.

Viscount Palmerston to Mr. Hudson. (Extract.)

[CANNOT TRUST TO BRAZILIAN PROMISES-FORCE ONLY WILL MAKE THEM

SUPPRESS THE SLAVE-TRADE-DOUBTS THE POLICY OF THE PARTIAL SUSPENSION OF THE ORDER FOR CAPTURES OF SLAVERS IN BRAZILIAN PORTS AND WATERS WHICH MR. HUDSON HAD AGREED TO.]

Foreign Office, October 15th, 1850.

I have received and laid before the Queen your despatch of the 27th of July last, on the subject of the steps adopted by the Brazilian government in consequence of the recent proceedings taken by Her Majesty's cruisers on the coast of Brazil against slave-trade, and reporting the circumstances under which you had recommended Admiral Reynolds to suspend a portion of the General Order which he had issued with respect to the seizure of slave-vessels within Brazilian waters and ports.

In reply, I have to state to you, that I cannot doubt that you, who are on the spot, and who arrived at your opinion by personal observation, have formed a correct judgment as to the sincerity of the declarations made by the Brazilian government, that it is their intention really to put down the slave-trade; and you were therefore probably right in asking Admiral Reynolds to modify for a time the course of his proceedings against slavetrade on the coast of Brazil.

But I must confess that nothing which has passed conveys to my mind any other impression than that the Brazilian government felt that Brazil is powerless to resist the pressure of Great Britain; that they saw clearly that this pressure must, if continued, fully accomplish its purpose of putting down slave-trade,