t of the slaves on the plantations. The trade was
carried on under license from the Government, and an import duty of
thirty ducats per head was charged on every negro that was landed. I
call it an experiment. The full consequences could not be foreseen; and
I cannot see that as an experiment it merits the censures which in its
later developments it eventually came to deserve. Las Casas, who
approved of it, was one of the most excellent of men. Our own Bishop
Butler could give no decided opinion against negro slavery as it existed
in his time. It is absurd to say that ordinary merchants and ship
captains ought to have seen the infamy of a practice which Las Casas
advised and Butler could not condemn. The Spanish and Portuguese
Governments claimed, as I said, the control of the traffic. The Spanish
settlers in the West Indies objected to a restriction which raised the
price and shortened the supply. They considered that having established
themselves in a new country they had a right to a voice in the
conditions of their occupancy. It was thus that the Spaniards in the
Canaries represented the matter to John Hawkins. They told him that if
he liked to make the venture with a contraband cargo from Guinea, their
countrymen would give him an enthusiastic welcome. It is evident from
the story that neither he nor they expected that serious offence would
be taken at Madrid. Hawkins at this time was entirely friendly with the
Spaniards. It was enough if he could be assured that the colonists would
be glad to deal with him.

I am not crediting him with the benevolent purposes of Las Casas. I do
not suppose Hawkins thought much of saving black men's souls. He saw
only an opportunity of extending his business among a people with whom
he was already largely connected. The traffic was established. It had
the sanction of the Church, and no objection had been raised to it
anywhere on the score of morality. The only question which could have
presented itself to Hawkins was of the right of the Spanish Government
to prevent foreigners from getting a share of a lucrative trade against
the wishes of its subjects. And his friends at the Canaries certainly
did not lead him to expect any real opposition. One regrets that a
famous Englishman should have been connected with the slave trade; but
we have no right to heap violent censures upon him because he was no
more enlightened than the wisest of his contemporaries.

Thus, encouraged from Santa