[250] The Investigador Portuguez and the Correio Braziliense, two Portugueze journals published in London, have arranged themselves on the side of justice, humanity, and sound policy. The former of them has been translating Dr. Thorpe’s pamphlet respecting the colony of Sierra Leone, and has given portions of it in each number. I hope the editors will be aware of the necessity of fair play, and will next proceed to translate “The Special Report of the Directors of the African Institution” in answer to the charges preferred against them by Dr. Thorpe. I know no more of the matter to which either of the pamphlets relate than what I have gathered from them, and from Mr. Macauley’s letter to H. R. H. the Duke of Gloucester. But let there be fair play, let each side be heard and judged. This is due to the African Institution, owing to the until now unimpeached characters of its leading members. By so doing the editors of the journal would prove most decidedly their sincerity in the cause of abolition.
[251] The cry against the injustice and tyranny which is said to have been exercised by Great Britain in the employment of her naval superiority, has been removed at least on this score; for a sum of money was agreed to be paid by Great Britain to the government of Brazil for the purpose of reimbursing those of its subjects whom it might judge to have been unjustly treated.
The captures, of which complaint was principally made, were effected under the impression that all ships which bore the Portugueze flag, trading to the coast of Africa for slaves, ought to be of Portugueze build. This was a mistake arising from misunderstanding the treaties which were concluded between the two Powers in 1810.
[252] Observacoens sobre a prosperidade do Estado pelos principios liberaes da Nova Legislacam do Brazil, p. 16.
[253] Correio Braziliense for December 1815, p. 735.
[254] Investigador Portuguez for June 1816, p. 496.
[255] I met with the following passage in a work of high and deserved reputation. “The Romans, notwithstanding their prodigious losses in the incessant wars which they carried on for centuries, never experienced any want of men in the early periods of the commonwealth; but were even able to send colonies abroad out of their redundant population. Afterwards, in the time of the Emperors, when the armies were generally kept in camps and garrisons, where a soldier is perhaps the healthiest of all professions, the Roman population in Italy had greatly diminished, and was visibly declining every day, owing to a change in the division of property, and to the pernicious and monstrous increase of domestic slavery, which had left the poorer class of free citizens without any means of subsistence, but public charity.”—Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire, by C. W. Pasley, Captain (now Colonel) in the corps of Royal Engineers. Note to p. 505.
In the work in which the note appears, it is introduced for the purpose of proving, that “the total average population in any country can never be affected by the annual number of deaths, but depends solely and exclusively upon the means of subsistence afforded to the living.” I have transcribed it inasmuch as the author of it states, that domestic slavery was one of the causes of the decrease of population in Italy; and though the pernicious effects of slavery do not act to the same extent in Brazil, it does undoubtedly prevent the rapid increase of the numbers of the people of colour; and if the trade in Africans continues much longer, it will tend to stop the increase altogether of the persons of mixed blood. That the increase of the free population of colour ought to be encouraged, no one will deny; they are the pillars of the state, the bulwark from the strength of which Brazil becomes invincible.
[256] I am aware that this is not the case with all nations; but although it may not be correct when speaking generally, its application to the people of whom I am treating, will not, I think, be found to be erroneous.
[257] If the camara or municipality of each township held the rank which it ought, this alone would produce much zeal in the higher ranks of people.