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Show 216 CUllA· under the Spanish or Portuguese flag, the parties have still another method left of eluding the force of the t rea t y, or act Of Parliament, already described. It is L • • • • to sail without those fittings up, and distmguislung articles, which would lead to their condemnation. In the mean time, these are conveyed by American merchant ships, which come to Havana in ballast, to the slave depots on the African coast, where the Spanish slaver, after an uninter~upted vo!age, finds her needful furniture and supplies ready for her use. And with what cargoes do these American merchant ships return from the African coast? Generally, as we were informed, with cargoes of bultos-balesliving rational beings from Africa, whom they convey to the Spanish colonies-or sometimes probably to Texas-or possibly even to some safe and hidden resort, within the boundary of your own Union. ,iThuu wilt recollect that the slaver Hound which landed three hundred and seventy-two slaves in Porto Rico, and the schooner we saw in Antigua, which had performed a similar errand, were both American, and under American colors. Eighteen such vessels have late] y been reported nominatim, by the agents of the Colonization Society, as observed on the African coast, in the act of carrying on the slave trade. It may however be considered doubtful whether they are the same vessels which carry articles for the slave trade to the coast of Africa, and slaves from Africa to the Western world, or whether these two objects are separate! y effected by distinct parties. But the melancholy fact is not to be concealed, that numerous vessels built in America, manned in part by CUBA. 217 America.n s, and sailing. under the Amert' cau fl ag, are now actively engaged m the prosecution of this abominable traffic_ IV- The involvement qf the consular qjfice_ The sale of American vessels, at Havana, to the slave traders in that city, whether immediate or deliverable at the coast of Africa-the transfer of them from masters to mates-and finally, the clearing out of any vessel under your flag, from Havana for Atrica-are all of them transactions which necessarily come under the official notice of the American consulate at that port. We were informed that the late Consul was doubly cognizant of them, because the othe1· side of some of these transactions must have come before him in his capacity of Portuguese agent. But cognizance does not prove guilt, and the real question is, whether, under these circumstances, he availed himself of all . his opportunities and powers, in order to put a stop to these iniquities. We may charitably hope, that this was the case_ I was however grieved to observe, that a public defender of N. P. Trist, in a late anonymous pamphlet published at Boston, acknowledges that the late Consul entertains doubts" whether the slave trade considered in itself, is not a positive benefit to its sup~ posed victims." This is a dangerous state of mind for any British or American resident in Havana. I venture, with great deference, to remark that no persons ought to be permitted to occupy your consular office, in that place, who arc not placed far above the reach of Cuban doucenrs, not only by common honesty, but hy a deep, determined, and unalterable, abhorrtmcc of the slave trade in itself. |