LORD BROUGHAMpresented a petition from the Anti-Slavery Society and said, that the Aberdeen Act had proved most offensive to the Government and the people of Brazil, and had prevented all the steps taken by the friends of the emancipation of slaves; that it had been most reluctantly passed in 1845 by the Lords who felt its extreme rigour; and that it was only agreed to by their Lordships on occount of the necessity of strong measures to suppress the slave trade. But that Lord Aberdeen had, both in Parliament, and in a written and formal communication to the Brazilian Government, pledged himself that it should be repealed if either the slave trade was extinguished, or the Brazil Government renewed the Treaty of 1826. Now the slave trade had entirely ceased and after thirteen years experience there was not the least chance of its being renewed. All the authorities were against it, the Emperor himself most decidedly for its extinction, and all his Ministers as well as the people generally, as the results of the election proved. Therefore the pledge given ought to be redeemed by the repeal of this Act which seriously affected all the efforts by the Society and others in obtaining Negro Emancipation, and was most hurtful to the great and valuable trade of this country and Brazil. The petition was, by the Rules of the House, only received as that of the persons signing it—these were headed by the highly respectable President of the Society, Mr. S. Gurney, on behalf of the Committee.
§ House adjourned at Eight o'clock, till Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.