free African named Desiderio, of the Mina nation, who had been constantly in the government employ since the year 1835, having been seized by the Brazilian police at the engenho of Cabrito, in the Province of Bahia, shortly after being landed; and the other day he came to thank me for having procured him his certificate of freedom.

No. XXI.

Mr. Jerningham to the Earl of Clarendon. (Extract.)

[COASTING TRAFFIC IN SLAVES FROM THE NORTHERN PROVINCES—DANGERS OF THE WANT OF LABOUR IN THE NORTH.]

Rio de Janeiro, September 11th, 1856. The number of Ladino blacks [blacks imported coastwise] which have been imported into Rio from the northern ports, makes me apprehensive either that something wrong has occurred somewhere, or that it will soon be the case; for, how can the northern Provinces, where negroes are most required, afford to supply the Rio and St. Paul's markets, when they themselves, decimated by cholera, stand more in need of that kind of labourers for sugar-plantations under a hotter sun than in those Provinces where coffee and Indian corn, &c., requiring infinitely less toil, are chiefly cultivated?

A Brazilian gentleman to whom I frankly communicated my suspicions, told me that he did not think at present Africans were imported into the northern Provinces, but that the planters there, poorer than those in the southern ones, were compelled by necessity and debts to sell their slaves, which were greedily bought up at Rio de Janeiro and St. Paul's, where they fetch at present enormous prices. He also assured me that later, if colonists were not imported into the southern Provinces in a sufficient quantity so as to force the black population up to the north, there would be great danger of the northern planters, for the sake of hands, embarking in contraband speculations.

One thing, however, is certain; the black population during the last year have suffered severely, and the prices paid here for Ladino slaves are enormous; those on the coast of Africa are excessively small. The people here have no great liking for Portuguese or Island-men; they prefer Creole blacks, and, if the truth were known, they would prefer Africans to Creoles. This, I am convinced, is the private feeling of most people, particularly those who are engaged in agriculture, whatever may be their ideas on the heinousness of slave-trade.

No. XXII.

Mr. Scarlett to the Earl of Clarendon. (Extract.)

[ACQUITTAL OF THOSE IMPLICATED IN THE SERINHAEM AFFAIR-THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE PROPOSES TO DISMISS THE JUDGES.]

Rio de Janeiro, December 11th, 1856.

I have received a despatch from Mr. Cowper at Pernambuco, informing me that the Court, called the "Relacao," which sat in judgment on all those persons who were accused before it of having a hand in the landing and theft of African slaves at Serinhaem, has absolved the parties so accused, including those who are known to be guilty, and those who are considered by Mr. Cowper as innocent of the charges which were made against them.

This iniquitous decision, according to Mr. Cowper, has been arrived at by an equal division of the votes of the six Judges who tried the case, the parties being then by law entitled to an acquittal on account of the doubt.

Against this decision the Promotor Publico, or AttorneyGeneral of Pernambuco, appealed to the Superior Tribunal of Rio de Janeiro; but I am informed that the Brazilian law does not admit of any appeal under such circumstances, and those who were accused stand for ever absolved.

Q

The Minister of Justice, however, Senhor Nabuco, in consideration of a strong opinion he entertains of the injustice of the decision, and of the bad effect it will have in setting at liberty those who are believed by the Brazilian government to be guilty, has determined to dismiss from their offices all the Judges who were engaged in the cause; and as this act is an arbitrary one, he means to appeal to the Chamber in the ensuing ession for a justification of his own conduct.

No. XXIII.

Mr. Scarlett to the Earl of Clarendon. (Extract.)

[COASTING TRAFFIC IN SLAVES.]

Rio de Janeiro, April 1st, 1858.

On the receipt of a despatch from your Lordship, which I have already acknowledged, dated December 8, 1857, accompanying the copy of a communication from Mr. Consul Cowper at Pernambuco, exposing the abuses which have so often been, for some time, practised at the northern ports of Brazil by an extensive exportation of negroes to other ports, and to their removal by sale to parts of the Empire at a distance from the districts in which they were born and brought up; I immediately addressed to Viscount Maranguape a note on this subject, a copy of which I have the honour to enclose, founded upon your Lordship's instruction to me on that head, and on Mr. Cowper's statement.

Enclosure.

Mr. Scarlett to Viscount Maranguape.

Rio de Janeiro, January 8th, 1858. The Undersigned, &c. has been instructed by his Government to appeal, strongly, to the justice and humanity of the Imperial government on the subject of the coasting trade in Brazilian slaves, which has for some time been a disgrace to this country.

And, in order to show that this iniquitous trade exists, and continues, the Undersigned regrets to add, with the permission of the Brazilian authorities,—the Undersigned has the honour to enclose an extract from the Pernambuco Jornal do Commercio of the 22d of September last, depicting some of the horrors connected with this traffic.

The state of the steamer Imperatriz, upon her arrival at Pernambuco from Maranham, referred to by this publication, is not a solitary instance, but one of weekly occurrence.

The Undersigned is unable to comprehend the reported policy of that Province in encouraging the free export of the slaves, and strictly prohibiting their import, one effect of which is unquestionably to make Maranham, according to the Jornal, the Coast of Africa of Brazil.

The Undersigned is convinced that the Province of Maranham, on account of its latitude and burning climate, is the least likely to obtain hereafter the aid of the white free labourers, instead of black slaves, and the consequent removal of the black Creole population will only render it the more imposible to fill up the vacancy thus created, by any other means than that of resorting to the still more iniquitous and illegal traffic in slaves from the Continent of Africa, which, in spite of the Government, the fazendeiros will be ultimately tempted to renew.

The Undersigned trusts that the Imperial government will, on reflection, take the same view of this question as that taken by the government of the Queen, and that it will not hesitate, when the Legislature meets, to propose a law prohibiting the export or removal of slaves from the Provinces in which they were born, and as a primary step, to interdict, at once, vessels subsidized by the government, carrying its mails, troops, &c. and commanded by officers of the Imperial Marine, like the Imperatriz and others, from carrying these unfortunate people to other Provinces for the purpose of being sold at a distance from their natural homes. The Undersigned, &c.

No. XXIV.

Mr. Christie to Lord J. Russell.

[ADMISSION BY LEADING BRAZILIAN STATESMEN IN 1860 THAT

THE

ENGLISH GOVERNMENT HAD JUSTIFICATION FOR ITS FORMER PROCEED

INGS, WHICH CAUSED THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.}

Rio de Janeiro, August 27th, 1860.

My Lord,-In some late discussions in the Senate on a project of law concerning nationality of children of foreigners born in Brazil, the opponents of which have accused the government of being influenced in promoting it by pressure from the French government, some allusions have been made to the measures taken by the Brazilian government in 1851 for the suppression of the slave-trade under pressure of the vigorous proceedings of British cruisers in Brazilian waters; and it is gratifying to see that Brazilian statesmen now avow in public, without contradiction, that England had previously just cause of complaint of the non-fulfilment of Treaty obligations.

The Viscount Uruguay (Senhor Paulino de Souza, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1851), supported the Nationality Bill, and observed, in reply to the taunts of fear of the French government, that when in 1851 the Brazilian government demanded of the Legislature the framing of measures to suppress the slave-trade, they were reproached for acting under the pressure of a foreign government, and his answer was, that he asked for the means of fulfilling a national engagement contracted more than twenty years before. "And the consequence has been," added the speaker, "that instead of despising us, foreign nations have given us esteem and honour."

Senhor Vasconcellos, a speaker against the Nationality Bill, took up Viscount Uruguay's reference to England and slave-trade, with the remark that no comparison was to be made between the present case and the former difficulties with England about