greater in the case of bargaining away the fruits of a licentious intercourse between his own caste and the slaves and victims of that profligacy.

But Dr. Chalmers thinks that the West India planters have been unjustly stigmatised, intemperately calumniated. Many humane and accomplished individuals belong to that much injured body. The latter assertion, we by no means wish to deny; but we are entitled to ask-If they really wish the public to distinguish between Slavery and the Slave-trade, between the innocent inheritor of a slave-plantation, and the ruthless miscreants who still carry on a piratical commerce,why are not these humane and accomplished individuals found foremost among the friends and supporters of the African Institution,-which has for its sole object, to redress the wrongs of Africa, and to obtain the extinction of the trade in slaves? Is it not, that they would feel themselves thereby involved in conscious inconsistency? Thus, perceiving the principle of colonial slavery and that of the slave trade to be the same, they are held back from opposing enormities which they abhor; disqualified, if not by their private character, yet by their political condition, from taking any part in the noblest exertions of philanthropy. Why, what a curse do these colonial estates entail even to the third and fourth generations of their involuntary possessors, when the mere circumstance of owning and possessing slaves, incapacitates the most humane and accomplished of the class for coming forward in such a cause. Surely, there is a moral emancipation which they too stand in need of, to enable them to exercise all the prerogatives of British citizens, all the functions of Christian men.

That no portion of British capital is still engaged in the trade itself, is, we fear, more than can be safely affirmed. We have understood that very intimate mercantile relations subsist between our West India merchants and the island of Cuba,— that sink of the Antilles, that Pandemonium of the Western hemisphere, in which the very dregs of the colonial system of Spain seem to have collected and settled. We should rejoice to believe that French and Spanish capitalists are alone implicated in the nefarious commerce of which the Havannah is still the emporium.

However this may be, so long as slavery exists, there is too much reason to fear that the trade in men will never be totally extinguished. The market must be destroyed, and then, and we are afraid not till then, the supply will cease to be furnished by unprincipled men at the instigation of the Moloch, avarice. Still, we would neither underrate nor discourage the attempts made to check and lessen the supply, and to render

the traffic as unprofitable and hazardous as possible; for every thing that tends to raise the price of the slave, has an indirect influence in meliorating his condition, by making him more valuable to his owner. In this point of view, the present Report holds out encouraging prospects; and the exploratory researches of our adventurous travellers in the interior of Africa, promise to lead eventually to the most beneficial results.

While the Deserts and the savage character of the Moors,' it is remarked, warn strangers from the North; whilst equally barbarous and comparatively unknown nations close up the East; and the approach from the South is hitherto unexplored; it has been justly ob. served, that there is no doubt that the more advanced tribes of Africa must bend their relations towards the West. The period seems rapidly arriving, when the difficulties of communication, once imagined insurmountable, will have passed away. The want of a leading power amongst the petty native tribes into which the country round Sierra Leone is broken, is the most serious obstacle in that direction; but as our reputation extends, and the experience of a beneficial commerce with us is strengthened, the common interest of all parties will unite them (as in the case of the Alimany) in keeping the means of intercourse uninterrupted. The habits and the arts of Europe must make their way, when they are brought from a milder school than that of the Guinea trader. It is Sierra Leone that the natives can reach most easily; and if they catch but a few European feelings, and learn but a few of such wants as regular industry of their own can alone enable them to supply, the victory of civilization will

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be won.

But first the Slave Trade must be put down. Nothing else can remove from Europe the infamy of that established fact, in which all the travelling merchants who come to Sierra Leone are agreed, that the facility of travelling is regulated by the distance from the coast."

After adverting to the recent cession made by the Sherbro Bulloms to the Crown of Great Britain, of territory extending over 100 miles of sea-coast, the Directors add:

"General Turner, in his despatch of last October, contemplated the result of these cessions with the greatest satisfaction. "As regards the Slave Trade, the district now ceded to us has for many years been the theatre of the most active operations in this, or perhaps any other, part of Africa; and the best information which I can collect, warrants my rating the number annually exported at not less than 15,000; all of whom will in future be employed in cultivating the soil, preparing and collecting articles of export, and improving their own condition. Nor will the kings or headmen of these or the surrounding nations, have, in future, any interest in carrying on those cruel and desolating wars which depopulated whole districts. The other parties engaged in the war, and who are an inland people, I sent messengers to, to desire that they would no longer carry on the war, as I had taken the country under my protection. They expressed their willingness

1

to peace, and some of the principal men among them came down, and begged to be taken under my protection, which was done. I could not remain long enough in the Sherbro to receive the more distant ones; but I make no doubt I shall be able to bring about a general peace throughout these countries, and cause the kings and chiefs to turn their attention to more humane and profitable pursuits." But the month following, the prospect widened further. I have received," he writes, " from chiefs to the northward of this colony, an offer to give us the sovereignty of their country, and to abolish for ever the Slave Trade; receiving, in return, our protection, and the benefit of a free trade with us; inviting me to go and take possession of their country, which embraces the two rivers Pongas and Nunez, so celebrated for their slaving transactions, and running through the most fertile districts in this part of Africa. Our name and influence are spreading with incredible rapidity throughout this part of Africa; and I have little doubt but I shall have the honour, ere long, to announce the total abolition of the Slave Trade for 1000 miles round me, and a tenfold increase to the trade of this colony."

"The Directors earnestly hope, that his Majesty's Ministers have determined, if not to accept these offered cessions of territory, yet to turn them to such an account that they may be rendered available for the entire suppression of the Slave Trade in those districts. It is, at least, a subject of great satisfaction, that the native sovereigns have thus manifested a sense of the miseries which this inhuman traffic entails on their unhappy country, sufficient to justify Mr. Canning's last appeal to the Government of France; "whether they can still prolong it, after even this miserable pretext of the traditional popularity of the Slave Trade among the native chiefs, is formally disproved." pp. 88-90.

We beg again strongly to recommend the whole Report and the Appendix to the attention of our readers.

Art. X. 1. A Critique on the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, demonstrating its Anti-Calvinistic Sense; to which are added, Observations on the Abstract Calvinistic Doctrine of Decrees, and Be the natural Effect which its Adoption must have on the Temper and Conduct of the Professor. By the Rev. James Rouquet, A.B. Vicar of Westharptree, in the County of Somerset. Inscribed, by Permission, to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. 8vo. pp. 26. Bristol, 1826.

2. Considerations on the Subject of Calvinism; and a short Treatise on Regeneration; designed for the Use of such as feel interested in the Enquiry, whether Calvinism be or be not the Doctrine of the Bible and of the Church of England. By William Bruce , Knight, A. M., Chancellor of Llandaff Cathedral, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Llandaff. Small 8vo. pp. 160. London, 1822.

MR. Rouquet is a much cleverer man than the Bishop of Winchester, for, within the compass of six and twenty

pages, he has contrived to give as good a refutation of Calvinism,' as his Lordship has been able to effect by means of a heavy octavo volume. The Vicar of Westharptree has discovered that the whole question lies in a nut-shell. Calvinism, he assures us, is utterly and expressly condemned in the seventeenth article of the Church of England, as a dangerous downfal, whereby the devil doth thrust many into desperation and unclean living.' For, though the Article does not speak of Calvinism by name, but says, that for curious and carnal persons lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before ⚫ their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most dan gerous downfal;' yet, as all Calvinists are manifestly curious and carnal persons, and all such persons Calvinists, and as moreover, all such curious and carnal Calvinists have continually before their eyes that sentence, it is quite plain, that Calvinism is the same thing; ergo, all Calvinists are under the influence of the devil.

• What Calvin's doctrines were,' says Mr. Rouquet, it is, perhaps, not needful to state: they are well known.' They are certainly not known to Mr. Rouquet ; at least, we are bound in charity to hope they are not. His reading on this subject does not seem to have gone far beyond Bishop Tomline and Winchester. He cites from the latter writer, his infamous mis representation of the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, for proof of which he had the temerity to refer to the third book of the Institutes, ch. 24, sect. 14. We do not think that Mr. Rouquet ever read a page of Calvin in his life, and he has, therefore, we may presume, unknowingly assisted in propagating one of the grossest falsehoods that ever proceeded from the pen of an unprincipled party writer. We have not Winchester's book at hand, but the passage, as cited by Mr. Rouquet, is as follows:

"Calvin's doctrine of Predestination is resolved (as may be established by sundry quotations) into the sole will of the Deity, both as to the elect, and as to the reprobate ;-as to the first, he asserts the decrees of God to be absolute, without any respect to faith in Christ, or good life;-as to the reprobate, they, by the same absolute decree, are predestinated and determined to sin, and to damnation. Calv. Inst. Lib. ii. Chap. 24. Sect. 14. How he keeps clear of making God the author of sin, it behoves his followers to explain." (Winchester, p. 17.)?

A few sentences from the paragraph referred to, will place in its true light this flagrant misrepresentation. We need scarcely premise to our readers, that we by no means stand pledged to approve or to defend all that the paragraph contains. From some of Calvin's statements we strongly dissent. At the same

time, where his expressions are the least defensible, we believe him to have been less Calvinistic than many of the Reformers, or than the heads of the Church of England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. That the reprobate obey not the word of God when made known to them, is justly imputed to the wickedness and depravity of their hearts; provided it be at the same time stated, that they are abandoned to this depravity, because they have been raised up by a just but inscrutable judgement of God to display his glory in their condemnation. So, when it is related of the sons of Eli, that they lis⚫tened not to his salutary admonitions," because the Lord "would slay them;" (1 Sam. ii. 25); it is not denied, that their obstinacy proceeded from their own wickedness, but it is plainly implied, that though the Lord was able to soften their hearts, yet, they were left in their obstinacy, because his ⚫ immutable decree had predestinated them to destruction.' *

This chapter forms, perhaps, the most exceptionable part of the whole work, and few modern Calvinists (except those of Mr. Vaughan's and Dr. Hawker's school, whom Calvin would have disowned with abhorrence,) would venture to subscribe to all its unguarded positions. Still, the glaring falsehood of Winchester's representation can receive no palliation from any thing that we may deem objectionable in Calvin's language, when, in point of fact, he maintains nothing that can be tortured into a resemblance to the sentiments ascribed to him. That he held a predetermination to sin in the wicked,—that he considered the Divine predestination as causing their wickedness, is clearly disproved by his own langnage. His doctrine is, that they are righteously left and abandoned to the consequences of their own depravity. The language of the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England is, that Predestination to life is, the everlasting purpose of God whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his own counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation." Calvin held, as included in this position, that there are those whom he hath not so chosen, and consequently decreed not to deliver; that is, whom he hath left; and their predestination to destruction is the mere negation of the predestination to life declared in the article. Those who, with Bishop Tomline and Mr. Rouquet, profess to hold the Seventeenth Article, and, at the same time, to reject and refute Calvinism, are bound to prove that this inference is inaccurate and gratuitous. When Calvin

* Allen's Translation: Vol. II. p. 460.