and such a gentleman as Mr. Denman permitted himself, and was permitted by others, to speak in St. Stephen's chapel of one of the conspiracies detected in Jamaica in 1823-4, as having been 'got up'-a mere trick in short-a cunning, politic, bloody little jest of a knot of Jamaica magistrates? Is it wonderful that the minds of those men, and the minds of those who know them, should boil with scorn and indignation when the account reaches the colony?-a conspiracy got up! and by whom?-not merely by the magistrates who tried the case, for the evidence in the case was submitted to the governor of Jamaica, and the sentence exe. cuted under his warrant-and it is from the character of the evidence itself that Mr. Denman pronounces the conspiracy to which it refers to have been a trick ab ovo. And what was the purpose that all these worshipful magistrates and their noble accomplice had in view?-why, according to Mr. Denman, it is their interest that the people of England should believe there are conspiracies in Jamaica! For such purposes the gentlemen of Jamaica and the Duke of Manchester commit judicial murders !-But was there even such a shadow of pretence for this enormous cruelty? This conspiracy was only one out of three that took place in the same island within the same twelve months: the evidence in regard to the other two insurrections, Mr. Denman does not dare to attack -and that in regard to the Hanover business he expressly admits to be conclusive and unanswerable* were two conspiracies in the year so very scanty an allowance? were these white devils' of Jamaica determined to sup so very full with horrors?

Mr. Denman quoted, from the record of his 'got up' conspiracy, a letter, in which it was said that, 'only one of the wretches confessed the crime before execution.' Mr. Denman sees in this sentence only the one word wretches, and expresses his indignation at the magistrate and murderer who could use such a word upon such an occasion. But after all, why did any one negro and, above all, why did this one negro confess ?-Was Obeah Jack, too-the ringleader-the only one of the set that could not possibly hope for pardon at any period of the investigation—was he,

* In the 'Picture of Negro Slavery, &c.' a pamphlet lately published under the authority of the African Institution, all the three conspiracies-that of which Mr. Denman admits the proof to be complete and satisfactory, as well as the others-are boldly pronounced to have been 'got up.' It is also added, that in none of these conspira cies the prisoners were allowed the benefit of counsel: a statement in direct opposition to the truth, as may be seen by any one who refers to the parliamentary papers, of which this pamphlet professes to be an abstract, and in which the names of Mr. Burke and Mr. James, counsel for the prisoners,' occur passim. In one of the cases, it is true, no counsel is named as having been present on the part of the accused: but the reason was, that the accused were all the slaves of one gentleman, who had formerly practised at the bar, and who appeared at the trial, without gown or wig to be sure, to do all that any barrister could have done for his dependents.

too,

too, with the rope about his neck, a member of the dark-souled junta that got up the conspiracy for the purpose of persuading the people of England that parliamentary discussions have an unpleasant effect in the colonies ?*

Upon the whole we most cordially agree with both the writers before us in the general conclusion, that too strong a protest cannot be entered against any attempt which may be made to wrest from the hands of government this GREAT NATIONAL EXPE RIMENT founded in justice, and executed hitherto in a spirit of practical and cautious policy.' If left to government we have no doubt the great experiment will continue to be executed in that spirit, and will terminate in solid good. If the advice of those who call, almost in the same breath, on the country to distrust the government, and on the government to ruin the colonists-if these guides be followed, we foresee no conclusion but one of horrors to the West India Question.'

That the government and the parliament will be firm their past conduct gives us no reason to doubt. The agents for the West India colonies have at last called for inquiry-they have at last taken this great step, and from its consequences we expect much.

We are satisfied, indeed, that a strict and impartial public inquiry is all that is wanted to set the matter right in the public opinion and we cannot help thinking the West India colonies will do well to come forward in some still more formal manner and ask it from parliament--not by a parliamentary commission, whose proceedings being removed to a distance might be called in question by one party or the other-but by a committee of the House of Commons, or, best of all, by evidence publicly taken at the bar of that House. Even as it is, the master-agitators in this great and momentous question will now no longer dare to say, it does not suit the views of our opponents that their case should be discussed at all,'--' they are conscious that neither the situation of the slaves, nor the conduct of the assemblies, will bear examination.' Scarcely will it be said again, that every gentleman who presumes to stir these subjects in the House of Commons is usually treated, by crowded West India benches, with rude clamours. Let the best evidence that can be procured be brought forward from the East and from the West-from foreign colonies as well as from our own ;-from the vaunted slave-paradise of Brazil, into one port of which country 25,000 Africans are, on an average, imported every year ;-from the free labourers of Sierra Leone, of Hayti, and even of China, Cochin-china, and

6

It may be as well to remark, that the authors of the African Institution's pamphlet, entitled England enslaved by her own Slave Colonies,' suppress entirely the fact of this Obeah Jack's confession. This conduct is much bolder than Mr, Denman's.

Siam. Let us know how far the labourers of these countries may be regarded as free, how far as compulsory, and what is the produce and reward of their labour; in what manner they are fed, clothed, lodged, and generally what kind of treatment they experience from their masters or employers. When these facts are fully before us-when the public, by a solemn proceeding of this kind, is put in possession of the true state of the case in all its bearings-Then, and not till then, the question between England and her West India colonies may be brought to an issue worthy alike of the benevolence, the justice, and the wisdom of a great and Christian empire.

ART. XI.-Recent Discoveries in Africa, made in the Years 1823 and 1824, by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, R. N. and the late Dr. Oudney, extending across the Great Desert to the Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude, and from Kouka in Bornou to Sackatoo, the Capital of the Soudan Empire. London. 1826. WE consider this work as, in every respect, the most inte

resting and important that has yet come under our observation (and we are not aware of having neglected any) on the subject of African researches. We will not even except the brilliant discovery of Mungo Park, which gave a new stimulus to enterprize in this the least known quarter of the globe. The importance of the information procured by our enterprizing travellers is not merely confined to geographical discovery, in which, however, a vast blank has been filled up, and a great jumble and dislocation of names on our maps rectified,--it is equally, perhaps more, important in the view which it gives us of the state of society and the moral condition of large masses of people, congregated in the central parts of Africa, and shut out, as it were, from the rest of the world, on one side by a frightful desert, and on the other by ranges of lofty mountains, inhabited by uncivilized beings, of whom little or nothing is yet known. If, from the extreme ill health and final dissolution of that member of the expedition, who undertook the department of natural history, less should appear to have been accomplished than might be wished in that branch of science, the reader will find an ample compensation for this deficiency in matters of a more entertaining description and more general interest. But we must hasten to take a summary view of the various matters contained in the volume; we have the narratives of an excursion from Mourzouk to Ghraat, or Ghaat, a town of the Tuaricks, by Dr. Oudney-of a journey across the desert to Bornou-of various expeditions to the southward and eastward by Major Denham--and of an excursion through Sou

dan

dan to the capital of the Fellatahs, by Captain Clapperton; we have also an appendix of several letters from the Sheikh of Bornou and the Sultan Bello; and from the latter a curious geographical memoir of the countries conquered by his father, accompanied by a chart of his own drawing; besides notices of natural history, vocabularies, registers of temperature, &c.: and by way of illus tration, a great number of very valuable and well executed prints. On the death of Mr. Ritchie at Mourzouk, and the return of Captain Lyon, Earl Bathurst, relying on the strong assurances of his Majesty's consul at Tripoli, that the road from thence to Bornou was as open and safe as that between London and Edinburgh, resolved that a second mission should be set forth to explore the state of this unhappy quarter of the globe, which annually sends forth so many thousands of its population into hopeless slavery. The consul's information was found to be correct; for although a little army of Arabs accompanied our travellers, under pretence of affording them protection, it was intended, as afterwards appeared, for a very different purpose. Lieutenant Toole subsequently crossed the almost interminable desert with two or three attendants, and after him Mr. Tyrwhit, loaded with presents of great value; and neither of them met with any molestation from the Tuaricks or Tibboos, who inhabit this desolate region, but both arrived in safety at Bornou.

Dr. Oudney, a naval surgeon, was appointed, on strong recommendations from Edinburgh, to proceed, in the capacity of consul, to Bornou; being allowed to take with him, as a friend and companion, Lieutenant (now Captain) Clapperton, of the navy. Lieutenant (now Major) Denham had about this time volunteered his services on an attempt to pass from Tripoli to Timbuctoo, pretty nearly by the same route as that which Major Laing is now pursuing; and, it being intended that researches should be made from Bornou, as the fixed residence of the consul, to the east and to the west, Lord Bathurst added the name of Major Denham to the expedition.

The delay that the travellers were doomed to experience at Tripoli was, as usual, most vexatious. The old bashaw, anxious, as he always has been, to meet the wishes of the British government, and led, as he appears to be, most completely by Mr. Consul Warrington, could not prevail on the Arab escort to stir one step out of their ordinary slow process of preparation for so long a journey. So profound is the respect of the bashaw for the British flag, and such is its influence on the minds of his subjects, that Major Denham tells us the roof of the English consul always affords a sanctuary to the perpetrator, of any crime, not even excepting murder'; and that scarcely a day passes on which

some

some persecuted Jew or unhappy slave does not rush into the court-yard of the consulate to escape the bastinado.' One day our traveller met with a poor wretch whom they were dragging along to the place of punishment, when a child and servant of Dr. Dickson were passing; the criminal, slipping from his guards, snatched up the child in his arms, and halted boldly before his pursuers. The talisman was sufficiently powerful; the emblem of innocence befriended the guilty, and the culprit walked on uninterrupted, triumphing in the protection of the British flag.

Another delay took place at Mourzouk, during which Dr. Oudney and Mr. Clapperton made an excursion to the westward as far as Ghaat, the frontier town of the Tuaricks, who, Hornemann says, are the most interesting nation of Africa'; he calls them 'a mighty people'-not mighty in numbers, we presume, though they are most extensively spread over Northern Africa, and indeed divide with the Tibboos the whole of the Sahara, or Great Desert; the latter occupying the wells and the wadeys of the eastern, and the Tuaricks those of the western portion of this dry, dreary, naked and sterile belt, which is drawn across Northern Africa from the Nile to the Atlantic, and extends in width from Tripoli to Soudan, (for Fezzan is nothing more than an assemblage of wadeys,) not less than twelve hundred geometrical miles. The poor peaceable Tibboos, who are nomades of a mixed Ethiopian race, are constantly exposed to the predatory excursions of the fierce and warlike Tuaricks, who carry on their marauding expeditions to the very frontiers of Bornou and Soudan.

These Tuaricks vary in colour, in different parts of the desert, from almost black to nearly white, and they seem to take pains to preserve their complexion, not only by being clothed from head to foot, but also by covering the face, up to the eyes, with a black or coloured handkerchief. They have not embraced Moslemism, although they observe some few of its external ceremonies; neither is their language Arabic, but appears to have a near affinity with that of the Berbers-a language which Mr. Marsden and some others have traced to the oasis of Siwah, and also to the foot of Mount Atlas, that is, from the extreme east to the extreme west of Northern Africa. Mr. Marsden conjectures it may have been the general language of Northern Africa before the period of the Mahomedan conquests, and that, so marked is its affinity to certain forms of the oriental languages, it may not be unreasonable to consider it as connected with the ancient Punic-an opinion in which M. Langlés is disposed to concur.

The wide diffusion of a language of which so little is known, and which has been a subject of so much discussion, is thus accounted for in the geographical memoir of Bello, the sultan of the Fellatahs,