Page:The African Slave Trade (Clark).djvu/86



I blush to speak the word, will be the banners of slavery."

The feeling excited in England at the time, by this movement, was very great. The friends of humanity there felt that it would not only embarrass the efforts which were in progress for the suppression of the slave trade, but would actually contribute to the revival of the traffic. And this result we are beginning to experience. The following is taken from the London Times.

"Mr. T. F. Buxton expressed his belief that if the Americans should obtain possession of Texas, which had been truly described as forming one of the fairest harbors in the world, a greater impulse would be given to the slave trade than had been experienced for many years. If the British government did not interfere to prevent the Texan territory from falling into the hands of the American slaveholders, in all probability a greater traffic in slaves would be carried on during the next fifty years, than had ever before existed. The war at present being waged in Texas, differed from any war which had ever been heard of.

"It was not a war for the extension of territory, — it was not a war of aggression, — it was not one undertaken for the advancement of national glory; it was a war which had for its sole object the obtaining of a market for slaves — [Hear, hear.] He would not say that the American government connived at the proceedings which had taken place; but it was notorious that the Texans had been supplied with munitions of war of all sorts, by the slaveholders of the United States — [Hear, hear.] Without meaning to cast any censure upon the government, he thought that the House had a