copies of the Scriptures, on returning to their native country; and they have manifested, on acquiring them, the most lively emotions of gratitude and joy. Nor have the British Prisoners of War in France been forgotten: a considerable supply of Bibles and Testaments was furnished for their use; and the gift has been acknowledged, with due expressions of thankfulness.

Among other works printing by the Society, are the Book of Psalms and the Gospels of St Matthew and St. John, in the Ethiopic, and the New Testament in the Syriac. The latter of these works is proceeding under the able and judicious su perintendance of the Rev. Dr. Bucha

nan.

The Committee express their sense of the loss sustained in the course of the last year by the death of Mr. Granville Sharp, the honoured individual who presided at the Meeting at which the Society was formed, and the earliest and largest benefactor to its Library.

The Committee close their Report with enforcing on themselves, and the Members of the Society, the obligation of unfeigned gratitude to God, and of augmented energy in prosecuting, to the greatest possible extent, the sacred object of their Association.

The seed from which this plant has sprung, was sown in a season apparently little favourable to its growth and fertility; but, nourished by the secret influences of Heawen, it has arisen and flourished amidst storms and convulsions; extending its loaded boughs to the ends of the earth, and offering the blessings of shade and refreshment to the weary and afflicted ot every nation under heaven. It is still putting forth fresh shoots in almost every direction, and proclaiming, to all who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness,"Fear not "-" For the tree beareth her fruit."

The storms have now ceased to rage; the convulsions are no longer felt; judgment has given way to mercy; and the long night of discord and calamity, in which Europe and the civilized world have been enveloped, appears to be passing into a glorious day of order, and peace, and social conco:d.

The Committee entertain a sanguine hope, that this improvement will augment both the facilities and the resources of the Institution, and enable it to advance more rapidly in the execution of its sacred design, "to

make the way of God known upon earth, and his saving health among all nations."

Stimulated by these considerations, and encouraged by the success with which the good pleasure of God has crowned the exertions of the Society, let it pursue the course which He appears to have marked out, and continue the dispensation of the Word of Life to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." In the prosecution of a work so con enial with the spirit of his own Revelation, the British and Foreign Bible Society may confidently expect the blessing of God. In proportion as it advances to the completion of its object, it will approach that desired and predicted consummation, when a loud vojce shall be heard from Heaven, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he willdwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himselt shall be with them, and be their God: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain: For the former things are passed away.”

We recur to the subject of the Slave Trade. And here we will begin with stating, that, after having heard from the hips of the different speakers in Parliament every syllable which has been urged in explanation of that article in the Treaty of Peace on which we commented so largely in our last Number; after having candidly weighed all the considerations presented to our minds in private, and having enjoyed the benefit of another month's deliberation; we remain of the same opinion which we formerly expressed-namely, that the stipulation in question is most disastrous to Africa, and disgraceful to Europe. Let us hear on this point the sentiments of an individual, whom no one will suspect of being hurried away by a false zeal, or of tending the sanction of his respected name to exaggerated views and statements. The Rev. Mr. Gisborne has just published a sermon, preached on the day appointed for a general thanksgiving, which is marked by his usual ability, and by his known attachment to the general policy pursued by his Majesty's Ministers during the last twenty years. To that sermon, however, he has deemed it his duty to attach the following note, which expresses distinctly, the feelings of our own mind.

"In addressing my parishioners from the pulpit, I thought it, on the whole, most advisable to confine myself to general instructions deducible from past events, or suggested by our present prospects. But in laying before the public a discourse referring to the peace, I should act in direct opposition to my conscience, if I forbore to express, in distinct terms, not only my deep concern caused by the stipulations in the definitive treaty which bear upon that traffic, but my convic tion also of the guilt, which, by recognizing them, Great Britain has

contracted. According to the clear and universal and indispensable rules which the Scriptures prescribe to individuals and to states respecting human duty, they are, to my apprehension, stipulations which no country ought at any time to have admitted, or to have ranfied. To have deliberately sanctioned an article, opening with a broad avowal that the slave trade is contrary to justice, and forthwith ending with an authoritative permission of the practice; to have deliberately sanctioned the recommencement of the slave trade, by gratuitously presenting to France, without requiring, as a condition, the immediate and perpetual abolition of the traffic, various colonies in the West Indies, and on the continent of America; to have deliberately surrendered afresh to civil war and misery and barbarism, by the unconditional restoration of the French settlements in Africa, fifteen hundred miles of the coast, where the slave trade is now extinguished, and a lawful commerce in native productions is established and advancing; and to have restored these settlements, with the full consciousness that it was for the purpose of renewing the slave trade that they were desired:--these are among the proceedings for which we are standing responsible before God; proceedings deliberately adopted by us in the very moment in which we were receiving from Him blessings of unexampled magnitude, and were standing forward to Europe as the vindicators of her liberty. To sanction the slave trade for five years, in order to obtain a promise that it shall then be renounced; a promise, the performance of which is left to the hazard of numerous contingencies, and is inevitably to be opposed by the embarkation of new capital and the formation of new interests in the traffic, is a measure equally impolitic and immoral. To permit a

man to form habits of wickedness, and to become deeply implicated in them as to profit, is not to promote the renunciation of them. To authorise iniquity with a view to its future extinction, is to dare, in the face of the word of God, to do evil that good may come. That France would seriously have preferred to persist in the war, rather than to receive from us the gift of colonies, for which she had not a single acre to restore to us in return, under the condition of the immediate abolition of the slave trade, is a supposition repugnant to all ordinary principles of action and of rationality. But is that supposition, if moulded into the shape of an argument, any defence of the treaty? When, were the argument valid, would the slave trade be abolished? To acquiesce on that ground in the continuance of the traffic, would be, in other words, to say to France: Menace us, five years hence, with war, if we require you to fulfil your promise; and the slave trade is yours.' How inconsiderately do we judge, if we deem that war is necessarily the greatest of national calamities, and peace the first of national blessings! What is war compared with the Divine indignation? What is peace compared with the continuance of the Divine favour? That we have acted aright in sanctioning iniquity towards Africa, if thus we obtain for ourselves better terms elsewhere, would surely be an argument too outrageous to reason as well as to religion to maintain itself during one moment of reflection. Let us rejoice and be thankful, that the British Government has pledged itself to commence new negociations with France on the subject; and also to employ, at the ensuing congress, its whole influence with the European powers for the universal extinction of this unchristian commerce. Let us unite in prayers to that Being, who has the hearts of all men at his disposal, that the exertions of duty may be crowned with success."

In adding to this extract some observations on the arguments which we have heard urged in favour of this article in the Treaty, we beg to be understood as not having the remotest intention of censuring any individuel. Our wish is to consider the matter as it stands, without any personal reference what

ever.

1. We are first asked, whether we would dictate to France about her internal policy? And some of those who have condemned most vehemently the article in question, are reminded of their uniform reprobation of the principle of internal interference with foreign powers. But can there be a greater abuse of language, than to call our refusal to sanction the revival of the French slave trade an interference with the internal policy of France? With as much reason might we be told that to restrain or to regulate the French fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland would be such an interference. What is it that we are supposed to require? That France should adopt a particular form of government, or place a particular individual at the head of that government? No such thing: merely that France should stipulate no longer to pillage unof fending Africa of her inhabitants;-a country also in whose favour we had already procured similar stipulations from other independent states,

from Denmark, from Sweden, and even from Portugal. Indeed, if we looked no higher than to the consideration of our pecuniary interests, we had a right to require that a practice should not be revived by France which would speedily extinguish our own commercial intercourse with Africa. Many of our readers will remember what a flame was kindled in this country by certain measures on the part of Spain, which seemed to affect some petty trade for peltry which had been opened at Nootka Sound... The dreadful note of warlike preparation was heard from one end of the king

dom to the other. Yet now the attempt to preserve to ourselves our fair share of the trade of a whole continent, putting other considerations out of view, is to be characterized as a dictation to France en the subject of her internal policy.

2. Unfortunately, perhaps, for the present question, the commercial part of it, though transcending in importance the value of a trade to Nootka Sound twenty times told, is so merged in the higher interests which it involves, as to be forgotten even by those whose minds are chiefly affected by commercial profit or loss. Hence it is that we are asked, "Would you continue the war for the purpose of imposing a moral obligation-of dictating moral duties to France? Would you prepagate your own views of morality with the sword, or at the point of the bayonet?" We reply, Certainly not. We do not require France to adopt, unless she likes them, our views either of religion or morality. But we do require, that at the moment we are opening to France a share in the commerce of the universe, while we are lavishly restoring to her large and valuable possessions, she should agree with us not to revisit the unoffending in habitants of Africa with "the great est practical evil which has ever cursed mankind;" she should agree to abstain from carrying war and desolation over a fourth part of the Globe; from poisoning all the sources of domestic and social enjoyment, and diffusing crime and misery, throughout a continent.But this is not all. The present, and indeed almost every, treaty contains precedents to justify all for which we contend. How often are solemn guarantees required, and given, of the rights and immunities of particular nations! But what are civil rights and privileges in comparison with those involved in the present question? Even in this very treaty it is mutually agreed between the contracting parties, that no individual shall be prosecuted, or molest ed, on account of his past political CHRIST. OBSERY, No. 151.

attachments. With at least equal reason might this stipulation have been objected to, both as an interference with the internal policy of different states, and as an enforcement of a moral obligation. And yet would any man have been satisfied with the negociators, had they not insisted upon this as an indispensable part of the treaty? Without it we should have been told, and justly told, that we had basely and inconsiderately sacrificed the happiness and the lives perhaps of thousands. Africans, however, and the descendants of Africans, (we here allude to Hayti,) are unhappily out of the pale of the European commonwealth. They used to have no existence in the eye of the practised politician and diplomatist, but in the character of goods and chattels, articles of trade, or implements of husbandry. They are parties to no public convention. They are not within the purview of international law. They are not wanted to fix the balance of pewer.-But let the kings of the earth remember, that there is One higher than the very bighest among them, who does not participate in their feelings of scorn towards the wretched African, and whose vengeance for deliberate robbery and wrong towards the creatures of his hand, and the children of his care, will not be averted either by a dif ference in complexion, or by arbitrary lines of political demarcation.

3. But it is further asked, "Would you have maintained these high principles at all hazards? The Allies would not have stood by you had you remained inflexible. Would you have dissolved the confederacy, and sacrificed the peace and happiness of Europe to your ill-timed obstinacy?"-And yet we are told, by the very highest autho rity, that the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the Kings of France and Prussia, are decidedly hostile tó the continuance of the slave trade, Of the sentiments of two of these monarchs we can speak with confi dence. The Emperor of Russia and

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the King of Prussia are decidedly hostile to the slave trade; and we will venture to affirm, without fear of contradiction, that neither of them has considered our negocia tors as exacting too much in favour of Africa, or as unreasonably pertinacious in asserting the claims of outraged humanity and justice in that quarter. But, independently of this, the argument is unsupported by the slightest shadow of proof, and indeed was put only hypothetically by the speakers in Parliament who defended the Treaty..

4. But France would not have submitted to such a condition: she would have preferred a continuance of the war to the renunciation of the slave trade."---But does any invididual really attribute validity to this argument? Does any man believe that the King of France, who, it is saffirmed, is himself hostile to the slave trade, would have made its revival the sine qua non of peace with this country;-that with Paris, indeed with the whole of France, in the military possession of the allied forces, he would have persisted in refusing this humane and equitable concession? Does any man really believe that France, crippled in her resources, exhausted of men and treasure, with a monarch scarcely yet replaced on his throne and to whom a season of tranquillity was absolutely essential, with a population exceedingly impatient of the farther continuance of foreign troops among them; that France, thus situated, would have prolonged the pegociations even for a day on this single point, had we been firm and unbending in maintaining the cause of humanity and justice? Still less will it be believed, that, with her wounds still fresh; bleeding at every pore, and bound and fettered as she was; she would have again unsheathed her sword, and renewed, under every disadvantage, a contest in which, while still erect and entire, she had been so completely foiled, merely because Great Britain refused to abandon Africa to all the horrors-to the universal pillage and devastation,

to the conflagration and blood, of a new slave trade.

5. But then it is argued, that "supposing we had succeeded in compelling France to subscribe an article renouncing the slave trade, absolutely and for ever, she would have felt herself to be, and would have been regarded by others, as a disgraced and degraded nation.”—But why should France be more disgraced by such a stipulation than Denmark, or Sweden, or Holland? Who would have known, excepting the negociators of the treaty, that there had been any unwillingness on the part of France to renounce what she admitted to be repugnant to natural justice? In the eyes of the world at large, Louis XVIII. would have had the glory of voluntarily relinquishing this nefarious commerce; of distinguishing the commencement of his new and auspicious reign, by one of the most splendid acts which had ever adorned the crown of any monarch. Disgraced and degraded! What disgrace and degradation could have equalled those which have been incurred by the article as it now stands? Forced to acknowledge the radical injustice of the very practice he avows his intention of continuing for five years! Could any thing be more humiliating, than to declare, in the face of the world, that the trade which he was resolved to revive and retain for five years, a violation of all law, both divine and human-a violation of natural justice? We rejoice that this declaration has been made, and for this reason, among others, that it supplies an answer to the argument founded on the inexpediency of degrading France. Had any one been stu dious of degrading that country, could he have done it more effectually than by obtaining her repro. bation of a practice as morally wrong, in which she nevertheless avows her purpose of largely engaging? Had he been anxious to shed a ray of true glory around her, could he have done it more effectually, than by exhibiting her to the world re

was