encouragement given in various forms the making of treaties, the institution of companies, the devolution from one company to another, the compulsion of the colonies to accept this traffic, and the recognition of it in a great variety of its laws? If it be a sin, it is a sin in which this country has had its full share of the guilt, and ought to bear its proportion of the redemption. How this country can decline to perform the act of justice, in performing the act of charity, men of great wisdom and integrity have not been able to discover. The example of France has been glanced at, which has adopted a more decided policy with regard to its colonial slaves. It certainly discouraged the entry of slaves into France, not permitting it according to the first edict passed in 1716, but by the permission of the governor or commandant of the colony; and that edict commands the slaves to return to the colonies at the instance of the master. But in the event of the master not having obtained permission for the slave to go to the mother country, in that case he was declared to be free. France did not therefore do as this country had done-put their liberty, as it were, into a sort of parenthesis; but it denied them freedom in France, and held them bound to their masters if the regulations hd been complied with by them. In 1736, an alteration took place by a further edict, whereby if the regulations had not been attended to, the slave was not, as before, entitled to his freedom; but he became forfeited to the Crown, to be sent back to be employed in the public works of the colonies. Whether that is the footing upon which the question now stands, I VOL. LXIX.

am not informed, and do not feel it to be of importance in determining this question. I believe they have been more zealous in Christianizing their slaves, than we have formerly been. England, the general sovereign of all its colonies, has been looking on with indifference, and permitting daily occurrences of this kind to pass under its eyes, without taking any steps whatever to correct them; and with all the indulgence which has been shown to the efforts of gentlemen who have manifested a zeal for the emancipation of slaves, the system of law has been little relaxed. Our own domestic policy continues to be actively employed in supporting the rights of proprietors over the persons committed to their authority in the character of slaves. It cannot be denied that cases have been mentioned by Dr. Lushington-I know not to what extent they prevail-but in any extent they are cases which must excite the sympathy of every considerate man, and call for remedy to be administered by the mother country, if it is not supplied by the colony itself. brought up with the expectation of considerable wealth, acquired in this or other countries, should be subjected to the reverses of fortune, which may befall them upon visiting the country of their parents at an advanced period of life, is a most severe hardship-that they should be compelled to submit to the humiliation which may attend them in any acquired situations, upon such return, is to be much lamented; but these are matters happily within the power, and certainly within the justice, of parliament, to remedy by some general correctives. Lord Mansfield, I observe, recommended to

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the merchants to make application to parliament for any purposes which they might deem requisite on the subject. It cannot, I think, be denied, that there are purposes for which such an application might be deemed eminently useful -cases in which the representatives of families who have acquired property in England or elsewhere, and who have returned at a very mature age to those islands, are certainly very fit objects to be relieved from a state of interminable slavery; for a return to a condition of slavery must operate upon them and others, who are at all under similar circumstances, with an unjust severity; and at any rate, the humanity of parliament could not be employed to a more beneficent effect, if the colonists themselves should neglect to perform it.

Lord Stowell, after Dr. Dodson had concluded, added a few observations, and pronounced against the appeal, confirming the sentence of the judge in the court below, with costs.

ADMIRALTY COURT, DEC. 8. In the matter of two Slaves, named

John Smith and Rachel.

This was an appeal from the sentence of the Vice-admiralty court at Antigua, on an information, at the suit of an officer of the Customs, who had seized the two slaves in question, on the ground of a contravention of the slave laws. The two slaves originally belonged to Mrs. Kirwan, of Antigua, from whom the property in them came to Mrs. Havercamp during life, and, after her death, they (along with others) were to be the joint property of her

daughters. Major Watts, an officer in a West-India regiment, the husband of one of the daughters, took these two slaves with him, as domestic servants, to Gibraltar, where he gave them a certificate, by which he liberated them, as far as he was concerned, and they were sent by general Don, the governor of Gibraltar, to Barbadoes.

On their arrival at that island, application was made to lord Combermere, the then governor, by the executor of Mrs. Kirwan, to have them given up, and his lordship accordingly sent them to Antigua, where they were sometime after seized. It was contended, First, that the slaves, being free at Gibraltar, were induced to return to the colony by the idea that they were really manumitted, and that therefore their return was not voluntary. Second, That on their transit from Barbadoes to Antigua they were unaccompanied by the bond and licence required by law, and were, consequently, forfeited. The owners were the respondents.

Lord Stowell.-The slaves were not the property of major Watts or of his wife, at the time when the pretended manumission took place. As the property did not vest in that officer, he had no power of disposing of it. On the death of the grandmother, the property became the mother's for life; the possession was vested in the executor. He applied, as soon as he was called upon to assert his claim, to lord Combermere. His claim was admitted. It was the law of the colony, that an executor should be entitled to the possession of the slaves, responsible to the owners. The bequest of the slaves had been made by the grandmother to her daughter for life, with re

mainder to her four grand-daughters, between whom the property was to be equally divided; "and I cannot conceive," said his lordship, "what right these people had to proceed against the slaves, or to interfere in the matter." General Don, who sent them to Barbadoes, because there were other persons going there, sent them in the most convenient way; there was no occasion for two or three ships to be employed. They were sent, therefore, not to their place of destination, but, for convenience, to Barbadoes, where lord Combermere had acted, with respect to them, in a discreet and proper manner. He was not bound by statutes respecting merchants; he was a commander-in-chief and governor.

"I am not," said his lordship, “ to watch such a transaction as this with suspicion. I do not think that suspicion ought to be indulged towards persons who are appointed to those high situations on account of their trustworthiness. Neither do I see any impropriety in the manner in which he carried the measure into execution. As to his not consulting his law-officers, he did consult them; he did not act on his own authority merely. I therefore pronounce against the appeal, and affirm the sentence of the court below."

In the matter of a Slave, named

Jack Martin.

In this case, the slave in question ran away from Antigua, and entered on board his majesty's ship Cygnet. Whilst that vessel was in the roadsted of Antigua, he was taken out of it, with the consent of the commander, who gave him up, and he was returned to his

owner. In January, 1826, he was seized by an officer of the Customs, and proceedings were instituted against the owners on an information, in the same terms, and to the same effect, as the others. The Vice-admiralty court had pronounced in favour of the owners.

Lord Stowell.-I have no doubt in affirming the sentence. Had he been properly discharged from the king's service, he might have been a free subject in virtue of his discharge.

The King's-advocate hoped that it would be considered that his learned friend (Dr. Lushington) and himself had done no more than their duty in bringing these cases before the Court.

CoURT OF KING'S BENCH, WESTMINSTER, DEC. 18.

The King v. Meireillos.

The indictment charged Antonio Joao Nunez de Meireillos with having conspired with Francisco Antonio de Oliveira, Antonio de Souza Rocha, Jose Antonio Gonsalvez Viana, and Henrico Lopez Ferras de Beca, to defraud the underwriters at Lloyd's. The defendant pleaded “ Not Guilty."

The Attorney-general stated, that the jury would have only one defendant, Mr. Meireillos, to try, as the others had fled into Portugal. The prosecution arose out of a policy of insurance on the Diana, a ship which belonged to Mr. Jose Antonio Gonsalvez Viana. It was effected for 16,000l. on a voyage from Oporto to Rio Janeiro, and was signed by some of the most respectable underwriters in the city of London. The vessel was lost on its voyage to Rio, and Mr. Viana immediately called upon the

underwriters to make the loss good. They suspected that there was some fraud in the demand made upon them; first, because the loss was said to be the result of a wreck; and next, because it was said to have been occasioned by holes made by rats in the vessel, which always made it leak the most in fine weather. The underwriters, therefore, called on Mr. Viana to state the amount of his losses, and to verify it upon oath. It then turned out, that he was not the only person interested in the policy, but that there was another person interested in it, who lived at Oporto, and passed by the name of Lopez. The ship was valued at 2,000l. by the defendant Meireillos, who was the clerk of Lopez, and who also assisted Viana in his business. Viana, in answer to a bill filed against him in the Exchequer by the underwriters, swore, that he had purchased the Diana of two persons, for 7,900 milreas, which amounted to about 2,000l. sterling; and that he had shipped in it a large quantity of silks and serges, which he had packed up in boxes on his premises; and with his testimony that of Meireillos agreed perfectly. Viana alleged, that he made purchases of these serges and silks at different fairs in Portugal, and gave the names of the individuals of whom he had purchased them. After this answer had been put in, an order was made by the court of Exchequer for the examination of Viana's books at Oporto. Now, it was not the intention of Viana, who had come to England to prosecute his claims, to have had his books examined before he himself returned to Oporto. But, owing to the alacrity of Mr. Young, the agent of Lloyd's

at Oporto, the books were examined before Viana was enabled to send any orders from England on the subject. He had left his books in the care of his father-inlaw, Lopez de Passos, who, on seeing the order of the court of Exchequer, allowed them to be inspected. Upon that inspection, discoveries were made of several circumstances quite inconsistent with the answer which Viana had put in; and extracts were taken from the pages in which these discoveries were first perceived. The lights thus obtained by the underwriters made it necessary for them to file a supplemental bill in the court of Exchequer, and to call for a further answer from Viana. On discovering that his books had been examined, Viana made several alterations in his former statement. He made allusions to several other books in which he kept his accounts, and professed his readiness to bring them into court if it should be so required. His books were accordingly exhibited in the court of Exchequer. As far as they went, they certainly confirmed and verified his answer. They also set forth the various purchases which he had made in Portugal, of various commodities, which he swore that he had put on board his vessel, and were confirmed in all their leading details by similar depositions from Mr. Meireillos

It turned out, however, that these books, when examined, were found not to contain the extracts which Mr. Young had taken from the book he had inspected, but passages and entries utterly inconsistent with them. A suspicion arose that the books had been fabricated for the occasion. Inquiry was made into the circumstance; and it then appeared, that,

when Viana heard that his books had been inspected by Young, he had been seized by an alarm lest his books should be found inconsistent with his answer. The letters which he then wrote to Portugal were couched in a well studied obscurity, in order to veil their real object. He expressed great indignation at his father-inlaw for having allowed his books to be examined by the commissioners of the court of Exchequer, and obscurely hinted that new books ought to be fabricated forthwith. He sent, by a confidential friend, details which he enumerated; and the fabricated books would be found to tally exactly with those details. He likewise desired that the price given for the vessel in his books should be made to correspond with the price stated to have been given for it in his answer. The manner in which this fraud was to be executed came, by an extraordinary piece of good fortune, to the knowledge of the agent at Lloyd's; and, of course, the underwriters were prepared to expect that Viana's books, when produced, would fully support his answer. It turned out that their expectations were corThe underwriters about the same time discovered, that Viana had bought the Diana, not for 7,900 milreas, but for 2,900 milreas, which were not paid in cash, but partly in silks and serges, and partly in bills, which were now dishonoured. Meireillos was implicated in this conspiracy; for he had corroborated by his depositions Viana's answer: he had sworn that he had seen certain boxes packed up and sent on board the Diana: he went to Portugal before Viana; he was present at the re-manufacturing of certain books;

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entries were made in those books, which were not there the first time that Young examined them and those entries which regarded the price of the vessel were made in Meireillos's hand-writing.

These facts were proved; and letters of Viana, dated the 21st of September, 1825; 28th of September, 1825; 19th of October, 1825; and 30th of November, 1825, were put in and read. The first was addressed" To the most illustrious Mons. Joao Lopez Ferras de Beca, Oporto :"

London, Sept. 21, 1825. Adored and beloved Father ;By your favour of the 6th current, I remained very much surprised and full of affliction; for having warned you with anticipation by my sundry letters, not to show any books or papers to any one whomsoever, it being for this that I ordered them to be placed in your care; I see that you have fallen into the snare prepared by the attornies and agents of the underwriters, and they, with an effrontery never heard of, have availed themselves and taken advantage of you, merely passing in silence their not having any order from me. Your Excellency will have been presented with the answers which were given in this Court upon oath to all the questions of the underwriters, and my clerk will have given you informations and explanations of things I ordered him to put into execution, which will abundantly prove how much I am in despair and uneasiness. If, finally, you can give any remedy to such great torments, do not spare yourself, and an unfortunate man may yet be saved: but should there be none, I will, with resignation, face whatever fate you may decide. My affliction