Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/378

, would have been at this day, in spite of any efforts to colonize, or to establish legal commerce, the scene of unchecked, lawless slave-trade piracy.

"Strange and frightful maladies have been engendered by the cruelties perpetrated within the hold of a slaver. If any disease affecting the human constitution were brought there, we may be sure that it would be nursed into mortal vigor in these receptacles of filth, corruption and despair. Crews have been known to die by the fruit of their own crime, and leave ships almost helpless. They have carried the scourge with them. The coast fever of Africa, bad enough where it has its birth, came in these vessels, and has assumed perhaps a permanent abode in the western regions of the world. No fairer sky or healthier climate were there on earth, than in the beautiful bay, and amid the grand and picturesque scenery of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. But it became a haunt of slavers, and the dead of Africa floated on the glittering waters, and were tumbled upon the sands of its harbor. The shipping found, in the hot summer of 1849, that death had come with the slavers. Thirty or forty vessels were lying idly at their anchors, for their crews had mostly perished The pestilence swept along the coast of that empire with fearful malignity.

"Cuba for the same crime met the same retribution. Cargoes of slaves were landed to die, and brought the source of their mortality ashore, vigorous and deadly. The fever settled there in the beginning of 1853, and came to our country, as summer approached, in merchant vessels from the West Indies. At New Orleans, Mobile, and other places it spread desolation, over which the country mourned. Let it be remembered that it is never even safe to disregard crime.

"Civilized governments are now very generally united in measures for the suppression of the slave-trade. The coast of Africa itself is rapidly closing against it. The American and English colonies secure a vast extent of seacoast against its revival. Christian missions, at many points, are inculcating the doctrines of divine truth, which, by its power upon the hearts of men, is the antagonist of such cruel unrighteousness.

"The increase of commerce, and the advance of Christian civilization, will undoubtedly, at no distant date, render a naval force for the suppression of the African slave-trade unnecessary; but no power having extensive commerce ought ever to overlook the necessity of a naval force on that coast. The Secretary of the Navy, it is to be hoped, has, in his recent report, settled the question as to the continuance of the African squadron.

"The increasing influence of Liberia and Cape Palmas will prove a powerful protection everywhere. With them Sierra Leone will unite in feeling and purposes. Their policy will always be the same. It must necessarily happen that a close political relationship in interests and feelings will unite them all in one system of action. Their policy will be that of uncompromising hostility to the slave-trade."

The pestilence which swept the coast of Brazil in 1849, had its effect in inducing the government to adopt more vigorous efforts to put down the slave-trade. In September, 1850, a law was passed declaring the slave-trade piracy,