§ LORD ALFRED CHURCHILLsaid, that in rising to put the question of which he had given notice to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it would be unnecessary to remind the House of the painful feeling excited by the horrible massacres which had taken place in Dahomey. Reports of similar cruelties continued to be received, though not on so extensive a scale, some twenty or thirty miserable captives being killed every two or three nights. A letter which he had received represented the King as being friendly to France, Spain, and Portugal, but hostile to England; and, being completely in the hands of the mulatto slave-dealers, it was easy to discover their motive for instigating the King to acts of barbarity. Their object was to drive away Englishmen, as they knew that if once they gained any influence in the country, the unlawful gains arising from the slave trade would be at an end. There was some ground for the belief that the present would be a favourable time for sending a British commissioner to Dahomey, and in any such mission he thought it would be well that commissioners from France, Spain, and Portugal should be invited to join, in order that he might see he could not really count on the support of civilized nations. The question was one of importance in a commercial sense. In the present distress arising from dearth of cotton, India was naturally looked to for supplies; but the shortness of the staple was such that, as compared with American cotton, our operatives sustained a loss in manufacturing it equal to 25 per cent. The African cotton approximated much more closely to the American than that which was obtained from India; some said it was even superior, but that could only be when superior cultivation had made it so. But, at any rate, by getting a supply from Africa, the wages of the operatives would virtually be increased to the extent of 25 per cent. The entire country from Dahomey to the Niger was one vast cotton field. The cotton plant was indigenous and perennial: consequently it did 276 not require replanting year by year as in America; the crop had only to be picked and sent home. Of the sugar crop the same might be said, so that in considering the question the House would not be dealing with it purely from a sentimental point of view. They would naturally be animated by such high principles as the desire to arrest cruel practices, and, if possible, to put an end to the slave trade altogether, but they might at the same time feel that they would be conferring great and direct commercial advantages on this country if they could establish in Dahomey a better state of things. The King was at present completely in the hands of the slave dealers; but if he saw that his resources would he increased and his own position secured by legitimate commerce, there was reason to believe that he would be willing to listen to representations urged by responsible commissioners. He, therefore, wished to ask the noble Lord, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether it was the intention of her Majesty's Government to send a Commissioner to Dahomey to treat with the King for the entire abolition of his barbarous sacrifices of human beings, and for the discontinuance of the slave trade in his dominions; and further, whether there was any objection to lay upon the table of the House any correspondence or memorials that may have been addressed to the Government on this subject?
§ MR. CAVEconcurred with the objects advocated by the noble Lord, but feared that a barbarian like the King of Dahomey would not understand any argument except force, and would not be bound by any treaty, however carefully drawn. He had received information that even our new settlement of Lagos, the importance of which, as a cotton-producing country, could not be overestimated, was in great danger from its proximity to Dahomey, and that its only safety lay in the presence of Captain Bedingfield, who had great influence with the natives, and who had anchored the Prometheus sloop-of-war off the town. He (Mr. Cave) wished to take the opportunity of bringing an important point connected with this subject before the Government. He had intended making it a specific question, but thinking that, in our present relations with America, it would be better not to do so, he determined to take advantage of some occasion like the present merely to mention it, and express a hope that it 277 would receive the serious attention of her Majesty's Government. He had heard from a highly intelligent correspondent on the West Coast of Africa that the whole American slave squadron had been withdrawn except one sailing corvette; that in consequence every slaver carried American colours, and our cruisers had not even their former miserable expedient of towing a suspected vessel to an American ship of-war in order that she might be overhauled. Unless, therefore, some counter-expedient were devised, a large increase in the slave trade must be expected, which had only been delayed by a commercial crisis in Cuba. The same writer enlarged on the absurdity of sending recaptured Africans to St. Helena and Sierra Leone, for the benefit of the Mixed Commission Courts and no one else; instead of direct to the West Indies; but as he (Mr. Cave) intended bringing this subject more fully before the House, when the expenditure caused thereby came before them in the Estimates, he would say no more then; but he begged to remind Her Majesty's Government that the authorities of the Federal States had lately expressed in the most marked manner their determination to put down the slave trade, and had even condemned one Gordon, a slave captain, to death in New York, so that it was possible they might consent to some, if only temporary, measure, such as a relaxation of their rules respecting right of search, in order to prevent the mischief which would, otherwise, arise from the withdrawal of their squadron.