TRADE AND COMMERCE OF NORTHERN CENTRAL AFRICA. (continued 2)

Minor criminals, who are sentenced to be transported from Great Britain, may be sent to Africa to aid in colonizing it. The punishment also of many offences against our laws, such as theft, house-breaking, forgery, &c. when these are not attended with the most aggravating circumstances, and which are at present capital, may be commuted into banishment to an African colony. Many, very many of those unhappy individuals who forfeit their character and lives to the violated laws of their country, and many who are expatriated from it, are not destitute of talents, and, if spared, might become useful members of society. In Africa, from necessity, they must become sober and industrious, or they would soon end their days. But if they behaved well, they might become greatly serviceable to their country, to themselves, and to mankind. In Europe, the remembrance of errors stamps an inferiority upon them in the eyes of every one, and which too often overcomes every resolution of amendment, and, considering themselves proscribed outcasts, they are hurried headlong into the commission of greater crimes. Removed, however, into the midst of a population such as are in Africa, they would assume an importance in their own eyes, which would act as a stimulus to keep them in the paths of virtue. They would see human nature degraded below them, and men more ignorant and rude than themselves. They would feel their superiority. They would strive to maintain it. By doing good to others, which they would then have in their power, the better disposed would endeavour to make amends for the injuries which they had previously inflicted upon society. The worst amongst them could still teach multitudes in Africa much useful knowledge. Removed from the scenes of their folly and their crimes, and the inducements which led to these, there would be few, indeed, who would not strive to retrieve their characters and their fortunes.

For a first offence, expatriation from friends, country, and civilized society, is, and must be, the severest punishment: removed to Africa must prove particularly severe. Let the condition of their restoration to society be their merits, activity, and character in Africa. It is our duty to reclaim, more than to punish—to restore, rather than to cut off a member from society. In this we follow, and, ought to follow, the footsteps of him who came to seek and to save—to preserve, not to destroy those who had erred. Perhaps 1000 convicts annually might be sent from Great Britain to Africa—1000, every one of whom might, under judicious authority, in some degree be made instrumental, in places of the greatest danger, to teach useful knowledge to the ignorant African. Under the controlling authority established there, the convict, from the hopes of forgiveness and restoration to a better rank in the scale of society, would be led to amend his own life, and reclaim the most degraded and benighted of his fellow creatures. All, perhaps, would not act such a part. But many would. If, however, this plan succeeded in reclaiming five out of ten, and in making these outcasts from British society the instruments of instructing Africa in any of the arts and labours of civilized life, how great is the good that will thereby be effected!

In this voyage (if I may use the expression) for the improvement of Africa, there are two fatal rocks which we must carefully avoid, if we wish to escape shipwreck. The first is, that, although the precious metals (gold in particular) abound in Africa, still we must take care to direct the exertions of her people to those labours of greater importance, the profits of which can, at all times, command the precious metals, and which productions ought, in this case, as well as in every other, to be only a secondary object. The next is, we ought not to go to Africa with the rooted idea, that it was Europeans who occasioned slavery, and created a slave trade in, and with, Africa. If we adopt this erroneous opinion, in order to act upon it, we shall never take the right path or proper means to root out the one, or to destroy the other. It is Africa herself, as has already been remarked, that is the great root of the evil, though her guilt does not constitute European innocence, wherever the latter has participated in, or yet continues the traffic.

The climate of Africa is not worse than in other tropical regions of the earth, particularly the coast of America from the Rio Bravo to Rio de Janeiro. On the contrary, about the mouths of the Orinoco, and all along the coast to the mouth of the Maranon, it is more unhealthy than any part of the coast of Africa in the neighbourhood of Benin and Biafra. With proper attention in forming settlements, healthy spots may be found. It is quite evident, that, in the interior of Africa, such places must be numerous, and that, freed from the noxious vapours so prevalent about the mouths of rivers on the coasts, the greatest danger to the health of Europeans would be the sudden transitions from heat to cold, which must occur among the prodigious mountains of Africa. The heat, on these coasts, is by no means oppressive or so great as in other places. The sky is much obscured with clouds, which mitigate the heat greatly. With care, these regions of Africa offer no greater objections to forming settlements in them than many other places so eagerly coveted by Europeans, and so widely colonized.

I have thus, though feebly I confess, in comparison to the magnitude of the subject brought forward, completed the object which I had in view, namely, to call the attention of the British government, and the power and energies of our people, to an honour of the first rank, and, at the same time, endeavoured to rouse the resources and enterprize of our merchants to engage in a trade of the first magnitude. By means of the Niger and his tributary streams, it is quite evident, that the whole trade of Central Africa may be rendered exclusively and permanently our own. The object, at all times of the highest importance, is, at the present moment, become more particularly so. The feelings and the efforts of this great nation would most cheerfully embark in the enterprize. To support and carry into execution the measures necessary to accomplish this undertaking is worthy of the ministry of Great Britain, and worthy of the first country of the world. It will confer immortal honour on our native land—lasting glory on the name and reign of George the Fourth—bring immense and permanent advantages to Britain, and bestow incalculable blessings and benefits on Africa. Agriculture, and manufactures, and commerce, and learning, and religion, will spread rapidly and widely over a country abounding in the richest productions, whether on the surface of the earth or below it, but, at present, a country overspread with the most abject servitude, and sunk in the deepest ignorance, superstition, and barbarity. Every obstacle will vanish before judicious and patient exertions. The glory of our Creator—the good of mankind—the prosperity of our own country—the interest of the present, and the welfare of future generations—glory, honour, interest, call us, and, united, point out the sure path to gain the important end. Let but the noble Union Ensign wave over and be planted by the stream of the mighty Niger, and the deepest wounds of Africa are healed. Round it, and to it, the nations from Balia to Darfur, from Asben to Benin, would gather for safety and protection—the slave would burst his fetters, and the slave trade be heard of no more. The road to effect this is open— It is safe—It will soon be occupied by others; and, if we hesitate, the glory and the advantages will be wrested from our hands.

FINIS.

Printed by Balfour & Clarke, Edinburgh, 1821.