t the mouth of
rivers till the cargoes had been shipped. Lord Minto, first lord of
the admiralty, in reply, said, that he would not assert that no single
instance of this nature had occurred; but he could say that none such
had come to his knowledge, and that he did not believe a similar
case had ever existed. He could assure their lordships that the only
complaint he had heard against British officers thus employed, was, that
they were too ready to take these vessels, and too little careful of
themselves, not attending sufficiently to their own security against
prosecutions. Every letter he received from those officers lamented
the difficulties in the way of obtaining the means of the capture and
conviction of these vessels until the cargo was embarked; and they all
pressed for the conclusion of further treaties. If those treaties could
be extended to all nations under whose flag the traffic was carrying on,
there would be no difficulty in putting it down. The case was not the
same with respect to Spain as to Portugal. With the former there was a
treaty which enabled us to capture all slavers under her flag; but our
cruisers could not capture vessels under Portuguese colours until they
had taken in their cargoes. Lord Brougham asked, if a reward according
to the tonnage of the vessel captured could not be substituted
for head-money? His views were supported by Lords Ellenborough and
Ash-burton, the latter of whom said strong measures should be taken to
compel Portugal to desist from the traffic. Lord Glenelg said, that Lord
Palmerston was engaged in negotiating a treaty with that country, with a
view of putting a stop to the trade. He thought with Lord Brougham that
our interference had aggravated the horrors of slavery; but at the same
time he contended that parliament had no alternative but to act as it
had done; and that the fear of increasing the evil ought not to
have prevented us from taking steps to extirpate the practice. The
conversation on this subject here dropped; but it was renewed again
on the 20th of February by Lord Brougham, who urged upon the house the
propriety of immediately emancipating the negro apprentices. His speech
on this occasion gained for him the golden opinions of the good and the
wise. He commenced by painting in poetic language the "delicate, calm,
and tranquil joy" which pervaded the Antilles on the day when slavery
ceased to exist. He continued to show that the predictions of those who