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 in history. Good, possibly, in its original intentions, this trade, from its earliest dawn, was made infamous by the desperate class of men engaged in it from its commencement, and it maintained its character for infamy, unredeemed by any civilising influences, even to our own time.

A privateer accustomed to plunder would naturally acknowledge no right of opinion on the part of those he captured: a slave was an article to be dealt with like any other article of commerce, and to be disposed of in any market where the highest price could be obtained. The consent of the negro himself to exchange a state of even starvation and misery for one of comparative comfort was an idea which did not enter the brains of those who first developed the trade; nor was it, indeed, ever entertained by their successors. Throughout the whole of three centuries during which it was carried on, no man on either side of the Atlantic seems to have attempted to introduce a legitimate system of immigration between the two great continents. What a blessing it would have been to mankind had some such system been adopted! What myriads of human lives would have been saved, while the rich lands of the Southern States of America and the equally luxuriant islands of the West, over many portions of which rank grass now grows, would have been beehives of industry and homes of peace, prosperity, and plenty. But, established in sin, the African slave trade thus continued, through its long term of existence, a sink of iniquity.

Though the Portuguese were, in after years, more largely engaged in this nefarious traffic than the