Page:Thorpe (1819) A commentary on the treaties.pdf/53

49 kingdom from revolution; and if revolution had taken place, it is probable that slavery would have been abolished in that part of South America, as completely as it has been in the revolted provinces of Spain; Great Britain having thus protracted the abolition of the slave trade, Portugal agrees with her as to the diabolical system of the traffic and the disadvantages of such a factitious population to her Brazil dominions, confesses that the slave trade “prevents peaceful industry and innocent commerce," and promises that a total abolition shall be established throughout all her dominions: she promises this over and over again: she receives three hundred thousand pounds of British money to relinquish her claim to trade for slaves on the African coast, north of the equator, over which she possessed neither right nor jurisdiction ; after which she enters into another treaty, which facilitates ber slave trade, insures inordinate proﬁt to her slave traders, and then stipulates that its conditions may continue for fifteen years, even after a total abolition shall take place; so that in deﬁance of every benevolent declaration of its inhumanity, every acknowledgment of its injustice, every confession of its impolicy, and the most sacred promise of royalty for its annihilation; Portugal will not ﬁx a time for the total abolition of the trade; and though it should be abolished, by this separate article she is to retain the beneﬁt of the treaty of July, 1817, under which she may 4E