I have now to instruct you to say to Senhor Paulino in reply, that the functions which Her Majesty's government wish to see performed by the Mixed Commission which they have proposed to the Brazilian government, would consist, not in trying and sentencing Brazilian subjects for a breach of the Brazilian laws against slave-trade, but simply in determining whether negroes who might be brought before such a Commission were entitled to be free, as having been introduced into Brazil in violation of a Convention by which Brazil bound herself and remains bound to Great Britain to prevent the introduction of slaves into the Brazilian empire.

The fact of an immense number of slaves having been introduced into Brazil after the conclusion of, and in violation of, the stipulations of that Convention, is not disputed by the government of Brazil; and the right of Her Majesty's government to claim that such slaves shall be restored to freedom is equally undeniable.

It is moreover to be observed, that the Convention which Her Majesty's government have proposed to Brazil for establishing a tribunal competent to investigate the cases of such persons, would not establish any new principle. On the contrary, it would merely give a new operation to a principle which was admitted by Brazil in the Convention of 1826, and was acted upon and in force in Brazil from 1831 to 1845.

It is evident that the functions of such a Mixed Commission as Her Majesty's government now propose, in affirming and decreeing the inherent freedom of a negro on Brazilian territory, would be perfectly analogous with the functions of the Commission which from 1831 to 1845 possessed and exercised the right of affirming and decreeing the inherent freedom of a negro found on board a Brazilian ship, which by international law is considered as Brazilian territory.

The negroes whose freedom was decreed by that Mixed Commission between 1831 and 1845 were actually in Brazilian territory when their cases were adjudged by that Commission; and

if a Mixed British and Brazilian Commission sitting at Rio de Janeiro has been acknowledged to be competent, without violating any international principle, to sit in judgment upon a negro who was at the time in Brazil, and to declare such a negro to be a free man, and by such declaration to deprive his pretended owner of all right or title to him, what essential difference could it make in point of principle, whether such negro was brought illegally into Brazil a month before, or had been brought thither several years before; or whether he was landed in Brazil by the boats of a cruiser employed in suppressing the slave-trade, or by the boats of a vessel engaged in carrying on that traffic?

If indeed there is any essential difference in point of principle between these cases, that difference consists in this, that the negro who has been landed, many months or several years before, by the boats of a slave-ship, and who has since his landing been subject to the miseries of illegal slavery, has endured a heavier wrong than the negro who has been recently landed by the boats of a cruiser from a captured slave-ship; and such a man is therefore more urgently entitled to that remedy and protection which the sentence of the Mixed Court would afford him.

I am, &c. (Signed)

PALMERSTON.

No. IX.

Mr. Southern to the Earl of Malmesbury.

[CASE OF A "FREE AFRICAN WHO HAD SERVED SIXTEEN YEARS IN THE MILITARY ARSENAL WITHOUT ANY REMUNERATION.]

Rio de Janeiro, December 13th, 1852.

My Lord,-With reference to my despatch of the 14th of July, and previous despatches from this Legation, on the subject of the improperly-called " emancipated" Africans, I have the

honour to enclose to your Lordship a copy of a note recommending to Senhor Paulino's protection one of these unfortunate individuals, who applied to me to intercede in obtaining his freedom, having now been in slavery sixteen years, or six longer than the term of his apprenticeship.

I have, &c.,

HENRY SOUTHERN.

Enclosure.

Mr. Southern to Senhor Paulino de Souza.

Rio de Janeiro, December 10th, 1862. Sir, I beg to recommend to your Excellency's protection the bearer of this note, the emancipated African, Romão, who has now served in the Military Arsenal sixteen years-six years beyond the time prescribed by law, and without having received any recompense for the period which he has passed in slavery since the expiration of the time when he was entitled to be set free.

I feel the utmost confidence, that in placing this poor man in the hands of your Excellency, I am taking the surest step for procuring him ample justice, and at the same time I am calling to your Excellency's memory the condition of so many hundreds of unfortunate creatures placed in the same circumstances as this individual.

I avail, &c.,

HENRY SOUTHERN.

No. X.

Mr. Consul Cowper to the Earl of Malmesbury. (Extract.) [COASTING TRAFFIC IN SLAVES-ITS CRUELTIES-TREATMENT OF SLAVES IN BRAZIL.]

Pernambuco, May 6th, 1852.

There is one point still open for the exercise of the humane and friendly influence of your Lordship with this government,

the continued exercise of which would render the cessation of the African slave-trade incomplete. I allude to the coasting traffic in slaves, which obtains so universally here. It is attended with all the horrors of its prototype; the same forced transportation from country, for from Pará to Rio Grande do Sul is as distant and in all respects as great a banishment as from the coast of Africa to Brazil, without even the poor excuse of ameliorating the condition of the negro, made use of by the Africo-Brazilian slavers; the same disruption of natural ties of parent, child, brother, or sister,—the same eternal separation from these and from friends; indeed, my Lord, most painful scenes are witnessed here at the departure of almost every steamer, and it could scarcely be termed an improper interference of Her Majesty's government to use its friendly offices with this, with a view of putting a stop to this heartless traffic; and it would test the sincerity of its anti-slavery professions.

I enclose to your Lordship a table published by the department of police, showing the number of these unfortunates for whom passports had been granted during nine months. You will perceive that the Secretary of Police has not deemed it necessary to refuse them for African blacks, although his government has declared the importation of Africans to be piracy ever since 1831, and consequently few, if any, African slaves should exist, nor has he thought it improper to publish the fact. Your Lordship will also observe that helpless infancy fails to excite the humanity of the slave-trader: forty-one children under ten years of age were banished, and three sucking babes without

their mothers.

The general treatment of slaves may almost be as well imagined as described. Under a system so unnatural and so irresponsible, it depends entirely upon the character of the master, for the very limited protection afforded to the slave by law is neutralized by the abject dependence of his position; he is for all practical purposes in no better position than an animal in Great Britain, who is there also protected by law; for he dare

as little make use of the faculty of speech in complaint as the other is capable of doing so the latter has one advantage, that he finds human beings to sympathize with and speak for him, but the slave never does. I have so often described the atrocities to which these persons are subject, that I need not repeat them; but they may be conceived when I re-state that I was an eye-witness to an unfortunate slave cutting his throat at a dinnertable at which I was a guest; and that invitations were issued in this Province by the proprietor of an estate to witness the boiling alive of a slave, in the cauldron of his estate. Urban slaves are less dependent, and consequently less worked and better clothed than rural ones, who are not uncommonly worked for twenty hours out of the twenty-four, including a period termed on the estates, "Riningu." Emancipation is very rarely practised.

No. XI.

Mr. Howard to the Earl of Clarendon.

[CONVERSATION WITH VISCOUNT PARANÁ ABOUT THE REPEAL OF THE 66 ABERDEEN ACT."]

Rio de Janeiro, January 4th, 1854. My Lord,-At an interview which I had yesterday with Viscount Paraná, the President of the Council of Ministers, his Excellency introduced the subject of the British Act of Parliament of August, 1845, and of the right of search exercised by Great Britain over Brazilian merchant-vessels, and complained at great length of what he termed the injustice of the proceedings of the British government towards Brazil, saying that they constituted a luxury of oppression.

Viscount Paraná took up the string of his complaints from a distant epoch, and asserted that, even during the operation of the Convention of 1817, the British cruisers had made illegal captures, and the British government had refused to act upon awards given by the Mixed Commissions. He then commented