times, and modern nations are more competent to admit them.

1091. To deal usefully with the question, it is vain to resort to the captivating phrases of the thousand-and-one preachings about equality, the rights of freedom and locomotion, and Christian doctrines, for they do not apply. The Christian Scriptures do not denounce slavery, but accept it as an established condition, and teach all men to implicitly submit and obey. The abstract rights of equality, freedom, and locomotion are unquestionable. But while war exists, and who shall suppress it ?-while the virtues and the vices concur in exciting the intellects and the energies of men, while industry and science, and ambition and avarice urge the human race, the enjoyment of abstract rights is controlled by countless impediments. The illtrained in mind can neither morally nor physically appreciate or enjoy freedom, when or wherever let loose. The poor cannot enjoy locomotion beyond the limits within which, or freedom, except subject to the conditions on which, a subsistence can be gleaned. The question is not as to the existence of natural rights, but whether, and under what circumstances, and to what extent, if at all, the law of nature justifies any in restraining or impeding the enjoyment of them by others.

1092. The justification has been sought in the real or imaginary rights of war. The pretence for the enslaving and selling of fellow-creatures rests on the unrighteous proposition, asserted even by modern authors, that by the right of war a man may kill his enemy or sell him as a slave. There is no such right. We shall deal with the limitation of the right to kill the enemy on another occasion, observing only that it is limited to the necessities of warfare. These necessities may involve a right to retain or to place a prisoner in a state of slavery; but that does not establish the right to sell him as a slave.

1093. It is not until a nation is strong, and possessed of

considerable wealth, and until the spirit of civilization has spread among the people, that captives can be retained in custody by a prison, or by the obligation of a word. Until then, the necessities of self-defence attach incidents to warfare which cease in a better condition of nations. The extent of the necessity is from time to time the measure of the right.

1094. A nation which has no prison in which to retain its captives, and which can afford them no subsistence, except such as may be earned by their labour, is entitled to employ them, or to deliver them to others who will employ and maintain them, at least until the danger is past. It is by such means only that they can be rescued from the sword or starvation. Those who receive the captives are entitled to reasonable services as the compensation for the maintenance and protection they afford. What may be the just limits of the rights of such protectors must depend upon ever-varying circumstances, into which it is unnecessary to inquire.

1095. But whatever the right of such protectors or of such captors in war, although a state of slavery is produced, the material element is wanting which constitutes traffic in slaves. That element is price-payment. Unless they can be sold, the captives are generally an encumbrance to such captors, and constitute no inducement to war; but when they can be converted into articles of commerce, they become things worth stealing, valuable plunder, to be acquired by inroads and wars, by hunts and forays more iniquitous than open war; the warriors and the thieves who perpetrate these enormities become the hirelings of the miscreants who open a mart for the purchase of the commodities which those enormities produce.

1096. Nor is war the only source of the traffic. The urgent necessities and barbarous tastes of some peoples, living in an uncivilized and precarious state, induce them to accept the proffered purchase-money for the blood of their

own children, and, perhaps, to persuade themselves that by the horrible barter the condition of their victims may possibly be improved,

1097. It is beyond our purpose to inquire into the deportation of slaves from Africa to the West, its original cause, the means by which the unfortunate creatures are procured, the mode in which they are treated, or the increase of misery which has been occasioned by the injudicious methods adopted for the abolition of the trade.

1098. The capture and enslaving of the people of a peaceful nation is an atrocious violation of international law; but the dealing in slaves is not an offence against international law. The buying and selling of slaves by the subjects of one nation, or between the subjects of two nations, is a matter with which a third has no right to interfere, unless the transaction occur within the ambit of its municipal law.

1099. The slave-trade is an offence against the law of nature, but it is not punishable unless committed within the range of some municipal law, which has declared it an offence and prescribed a penalty.

1100. The first law of which we are aware against this nefarious traffic was passed in Venice, in 864, but its inefficiency required a more stringent measure. In 878 it was declared criminal for a Venetian to permit any slaves to be received on board his vessel.

1101. It has been described and treated, by a strange application of the word, as piracy by the laws of the United States of America, and of England, Denmark, and other European nations, but that does not constitute it piracy, punishable according to the law of nations. It can only be punished according to the law of the country in which it is committed, or to which the offender belongs. (Diana. Antelope. Madrazo v. Willes. Buron v. Denman.) But foreigners committing such offences within its jurisdiction are liable to the municipal law. Del Campo v. The Queen.

1102. The English statute, 5 Geo. IV. c. 113, s. 2, declared it unlawful, except in certain cases, for any person to trade in slaves, or persons intended to be dealt with as slaves, or to convey any persons to be dealt with as slaves, or to import, or to contract for importing, into any place, slaves, or persons to be dealt with as slaves; or to ship, tranship, embark, receive, detain, or confine on board, or to contract for the shipping, etc., on board of any vessel, of slaves, or persons conveyed to be dealt with as slaves; or to fit out, man, navigate, equip, dispatch, use, employ, let, or take to freight, or on hire, or contract for the fitting out, etc., any vessel for any such objects or contracts; or to lend money, or to enter into security, or to engage in partnership, or otherwise, for any such purposes; or to take the charge or command, or to navigate, or enter, or embark on board any vessel, as captain, officer, servant, or in any other capacity, knowing that the vessel is to be employed for such purpose; or to enter into any contract of insurance in respect of such objects. And by 6 & 7 Vict. c. 98, it is enacted that all the provisions of the 5 Geo. IV. c. 113, shall extend to all British subjects, whether residing within the British dominions or in any foreign country.

Persons engaged in dealing in slaves are subjected to a penalty of £100 for each slave. 5 Geo. IV. c. 113, s. 3.

The vessel employed in such occupation, with all her boats, guns, and furniture, and everything on board belonging to her owners, is forfeited (s. 4).

The dealing in, or conveying slaves on the high seas, or in any haven, river, creek, or place where the Admiral has jurisdiction, is piracy, felony, and robbery, and punishable with death (s. 9).

Petty officers and seamen serving, or contracting for service, on board a vessel for such purposes, are guily of a misdemeanour, punishable with two years' imprisonment (s. 11).

Bounties are allowed for the capture of slaves (s. 25).

This Act contains eighty-two sections, of which it is un

necessary to cite more in this treatise, or to state more than that they contain various exceptions, some no longer applicable since the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, penalties for acts collateral to navigation, rewards for information of the illegal objects of the vessel, and modes of procedure; indeed, it is a consolidation of the laws for the abolition of the slave-trade.

1103. The punishment of death for piracy, except when murder is attempted, is, by 1 Vict. c. 88, ss. 2, 3, commuted to punishment by transportation for life, or not less than fifteen years, or imprisonment not exceeding three years. And by 16 & 17 Vict. c. 99, and 20 & 21 Vict. c. 3, penal servitude is substituted for transportation.

1104. The Act 2 and 3 Vict. c. 73, authorizes any person in Her Majesty's service, under the authority of the Lords of the Admiralty, or any one of the Secretaries of State, to detain and capture vessels engaged in the slave-trade, and the slaves on board, and to bring them for adjudication before the Admiralty, or any Vice-Admiralty court, as if the vessels and cargoes belonged to British subjects; providing that no such court should condemn any vessel, if the owner should establish to its satisfaction that she was entitled to claim the protection of any flag other than that of Great Britain or Portugal. It indemnified persons acting under such authority, provided for the mode of trial, and the circumstances under which vessels might be seized, declaring such circumstances primâ facie evidence of employment in the slavetrade, and directed the condemnation of the ship and cargo to the Crown, unless the owner could prove the lawfulness of her purposes and outfit.

The circumstances authorizing such seizure and condemnation are, if there shall be found any of the things hereinafter mentioned; that is to say,

Hatches with open gratings instead of the close hatches which are usual in merchant vessels. Divisions or bulkheads in the hold or on deck more numerous than are neces