The second event was that of the Charles Georges, captured on the coast of Mozambique, beyond the legal bounds and despite the regularity of its papers, by the Portuguese authorities, an event which forced the French government to send two men-of-war to Lisbon, and was at last terminated by a just satisfaction rendered to our right and flag, but after many difficulties, and amid the unbridled clamors and insults of the English and Portuguese journals, who accused France anew of engaging in the slavetrade.

Is this so? Is the system of the importation of free negroes an involuntary return to the slave-trade?

If this be false, the system should be persevered in, in spite of appearances. If it be true, it is right to renounce it, in spite of its advantages. We have said enough of,immigration elsewhere to be brief here.*

We have proved that the necessity of immigration was not born of the necessity of the emancipation of slaves. It is the means of peopling lands insufficiently inhabited, of cultivating lands insufficiently cultivated. But the abolition of slavery adds to this necessity in two ways: first, because a part of the former slaves become freeholders, artisans, or vagrants; second, because, a part of the former masters becoming more active and industrious, labor is in greater demand.

We have also proved, that after having tried all races, no better substitutes are found for Africans than other Africans.

We have shown, lastly, that at the West Indies as at Bourbon, at Jamaica as at Cuba, at Charleston as at Surinam, at Rio de Janeiro as at New Orleans, the unanimous cry of all the planters has been for a large immigration of laborers as the only means of safety or progress, and that all the governments, English, French, Spanish, Dutch,

*Results of Emancipation, p. 202.

American, and Brazilian, have authorized, encouraged, and regulated this operation.

It is true that this imperative want necessarily involves the resuscitation of the slave-trade?

*

It is said, on the contrary, that the engagement of free negroes is a means of annihilating the slave-trade, because the native chiefs, having the choice, prefer delivering their slaves to honorable merchants to be freed, instead of to cruel slave-traders. This is to attribute great refinement of feeling to these frightful petty sovereigns. It is to forget, most of all that the slave-traders pay higher for a slave to sell again than the emigration agents can pay for a hired man whose contract will soon expire. If this be so, emigration will never prevail over the slave-trade. It offers besides in many points the same dangers.

What is the slave-trade? A drama in five acts, the capture, the caravan, the sale, the passage, the slavery. Immigration is a drama which ends differently, but begins the same. The negro is captured, carried to the coast, sold, and transported, only instead of going to slavery, he goes to freedom, - to the freedom which begins with exile and a contract to labor.

Like the slave-trade, immigration brings buyers to horrible sellers, who, to satisfy their demands, engage in kidnapping and war, lash their captives onwards in droves, slay all useless mouths, and truckle the remainder for goods or gold. It leads wretches to freedom on a strange land, who do not rightly know what is asked them, and who in general abhor quitting the soil where they have always suffered. Finally, intrusted to honest hands under vigilant eyes for a few years, by degrees it will become the trade of merchants of doubtful honesty or unfaithful agents, and will lapse erelong, in proportion as surveillance and public

* See the remarkable article of M. J. Delarbre, L'immigration africaine et la traite des noirs.

opinion are lulled to sleep, into the old ways of the slavetrade. No regulation is minute enough, no protection strong enough, no intervention of the state sure enough, when the point in question is a contract entered into under the equator, far from courts of law and notaries, a contract which consists of a few words addressed in a few minutes by an interested interpreter to an ignorant and terrified captive, which decide the life of a wretch who does not even suspect that in changing hands he changes his fate.

1. The engagement of negroes in a preliminary state of freedom seems to me perfectly legitimate; but this way is slow and. insufficient.

2. The engagement by preliminary redemption is free from all reproach on the part of those who hire the negroes after having freed them; but on the part of those who capture and sell them, it precisely resembles the slavetrade; the immigrant is hired free, but he is not brought free to the sea-shore.

3. The surveillance organized to suppress abuses is loyal and laborious, but inefficient. Numerous and horrible facts prove this.

I have confidence in those who ransom; I honor and admire those who watch; but I distrust those who transport; I am convinced of the barbarity of those who sell; I have doubts as to the consent of those who are sold; I have little belief in the reconciliation.

These serious motives, and too well founded scruples, inspired the letter addressed by the Emperor, in 1858, to the prince, charged with the direction of the colonies : —

"MY DEAR COUSIN :

"SAINT CLOUD, October 30, 1858.

"I ardently desire that, at the moment when the difference

with Portugal respecting the Charles-Georges has just terminated, the question of contracting for free laborers on the coast of Africa should be definitively examined, and resolved in accordance with the true principles of justice and humanity. I have earnestly demanded of Portugal the restitution of the Charles-Georges, because I shall always maintain intact the independence of the national flag; and in this circumstance, the profound conviction of its right alone could have induced me to risk the disruption of the friendly relations which I take pleasure in sustaining with the King of Portugal.

"But as to the principle involved in contracts for negroes, my ideas are far from fixed. If, indeed, the laborers hired on the coast of Africa have no free will, and if this contracting be nothing more than a disguised slave-trade, I will not have it at any price. For I will not be the one to protect enterprises anywhere that are contrary to progress, humanity, and civilization.

"I entreat you, therefore, to investigate the truth with the zeal and intelligence which you bring to all matters to which you apply yourself, and, as the best manner of putting an end to the continual causes of conflict would be to substitute the free labor of East Indian coolies for that of negroes, I invite you to join with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in resuming the negotiations with the English government which were entered upon a few months ago. Upon which, my dear cousin, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping.

"NAPOLEON."

A commission was appointed, and at the close of its labors, the engagement of negroes on the western coast of Africa was suspended, but without annulling anterior treaties. Negotiations have been resumed with England for the engagement of coolies, and, thanks to the address of

one of the delegates from the Isle of Bourbon,* a treaty concluded at London, July 25, 1860, in spite of vehement and unjust criticism,† secures to this colony 6,000 East Indians. One of the stipulations of the treaty of 1860 with China secures the liberty to import Chinese.

China and India, - here are two immense territories where the colonies can find free laborers, officina gentium; and these reservoirs are vast enough for none to have the right to complain, if forbidden to draw elsewhere. Nevertheless, no laborer is as good as the African. How procure him? How render justifiable a most natural operation?

It is criminal on two sides, slavery in the colonies, barbarism in Africa. Slavery in the colonies is destroyed; nothing more remains but to destroy barbarism in Africa. Such is the reply of the illustrious traveller, David Livingstone, and this great name will quickly check the derisive smile or saddened sigh of those who denounce this reply as chimerical.

God be praised! After so many centuries of remorseless iniquity, after a lamentable series of guilty operations which have sunk Africa in brutishness, without carrying to the possessions of Europe either lasting wealth or even sufficient population, humanity is brought back by experience to justice, interest itself preaches duty; what the exploitation of Africa has not produced, may be expected of the exploration and evangelization of Africa.

This point deserves to arrest attention.

*M. Imhaus.

† See the debate in the House of Commons, March 8, 1860, and the speech of Mr. Cave. "Las Casas delivered up the negroes to save the Indians; this was at least to deliver up the strong to spare the weak; you do the contrary. Will the loyalty of our subjects be insured by their sojourn in a foreign nation, which may become hostile?" etc.