Note 47 — Chapter IX · RIO JANEIRO, CAPITAL OF BRAZIL.

Those who would fully understand the bearings of this most interesting subject, concerning which an infinite deal of misunderstanding was, I may almost say designedly, propagated in England, so perverse was the determination, in certain quarters, to disbelieve everything that redounded to the credit, and to swallow implicitly all that was supposed to tell to the discredit, of Brazil, will find it fully set forth in the evidence given before the committee on Slave Trade Treaties, which sat in the course of last session, under the chairmanship of Mr. Hume. On that committee were several gentlemen who had been most strenuous in their resistance to all remonstrance on the part of Brazil, against the too often wanton, and almost always violent and irritating, conduct of our cruisers; gentlemen who were incessant in their appeals for vigorous measures on the part of our squadron on the coast, and of our ambassadors at the court, of Brazil; yet the committee so composed reported as follows:—The importation of slaves into Brazil, in ’47, was 56,172: in ’48, 60,000; in ’49, 54,000; but in ’51, it had diminished to 3,287, and in ’52, to 700, of which last importation a considerable portion had been seized by the Brazilian Government. Mr. Consul Porter reported to Viscount Palmerston in ’48, that 74 slave-trade vessels had sailed from Bahia in the year ’47, and 93 in ’48;—that the slave traffic was carried on with great activity; and, as an example, he stated that one vessel, the ‘Andorinha,’ of 80 tons burden, which cost £2,000 sterling, had made eight successful voyages with slaves from the West Coast of Africa, having actually landed at Bahia 3,392 slaves, and received for freight 120 milreis per head, or £40,704 sterling, giving a profit of 800 per cent.; also that towards the end of ’50, and in ’51, stringent orders had arrived at Bahia for the suppression of the trade, and that when he left Bahia in the end of ’51, ‘the slave trade was perfectly suspended.’ He thinks that the British ships alone cannot stop the trade, but that if the Brazilian Government be sincere, it will certainly be put down. Your committee invite the attention of the House to the evidence of Senhor D’Andrade and others, and to the reports of the Brazilian Ministers, for an explanation of the manner in which so great a change has been effected in the Brazils. The speech of the Emperor to the assembly of this year, on the subject of the slave trade; the stringent laws that have been passed, and others that are in progress, by the Brazilian Government against the slave trade; and, above all, the seizure and banishment of some Portuguese merchants, who, were suspected of an intention to renew the trade, convince your committee that the Brazilian Government is sincere, and that the slave trade is actually abolished in the Brazils. Your committee refer to the correspondence of the Earl of Aberdeen with the Brazilian Government, in 1845, to explain the state of the slave question at that time, and the reasons that induced Parliament to pass the 8 and 9 Vict. c. 122. The favourable change which has taken place in the councils and conduct of the Brazilian Government respecting slavery, whether accelerated by the active services of Captain Schomberg or not, may induce Parliament to repeal that Act, as intimated in his Lordship’s letter of the 2d July 1845.—It is to be hoped that this recommendation of the committee will be carried out in the course of the present session.