Lime and potash,

4.70

The 2.51 grains of oxide of iron correspond to 1.76 of metal; but the 0.09 of sulphur require 0.16 of metallic iron to form a proto-sulphuret; and if, moreover, 0.18 are deducted for the 0.25 of the oxide of iron withdrawn by the chromate, there will remain free 7.42 of metallic iron, containing only nickel and manganese.

We have only farther to add, that in the course of this year, the Academy of Sciences sustained an irreparable loss in the deaths of MM. Haüy, Delambre, and Berthollet, the first of whom was the founder of the science of crystallography, which he carried to so high a degree of perfection; the second, no less remarkable for profound acquaintance with science, than for the extent and variety of his attainments as a general scholar; the last, the friend and fellow labourer of the celebrated but unfortunate Lavoisier, in systematizing the modern science of chemistry, which, during his active and valuable life, he continued, from time to time, to enrich with many original and important discoveries. The reputation of these men belongs rather to science in general, than the country which gave them birth; and there is not, at this moment, a natural philosopher or chemist in Europe who is not indebted to their invaluable labours for a large share of the elementary knowledge he possesses. Their eulogy will therefore be pronounced,

THE AFRICAN INSTITUTION.

This association held its seventeenth anniversary meeting on Friday the 16th of May, in Freemasons' Hall. The attendance was highly respectable, and more numerous than on any former occasion. Among other illustrious individuals present, was the celebrated Count de Toreno, the great champion of African emancipation in the Spanish Cortes. After the reading of the report, the meeting was addressed at considerable length by a number of noblemen and gentlemen, who depicted in warm colours the horrors and atrocities of the contraband traffic in human beings, secretly abetted and carried on by several of the nations of the continent, particularly France, and who seemed to be animated with the most earnest desire to co-operate with Government in the employment of any means likely to put a stop to an evil which seems daily increasing in extent and enormity. Without stopping, however, to notice these addresses, so creditable to the feelings and principles of the persons by whom they were delivered, we shall proceed to lay before our readers an abstract of the information contained in the report.

In detailing the measures which have been adopted, during the last year, for the further suppression of the slave trade, the report naturally commences with the negociations which took place upon that subject in the Congress at Verona. In September last, the Duke of Wellington, during his stay at Paris, on his way to Verona,

tiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, held at Verona on the 24th of November last, on the subject of the deplorable continuance of this opprobrious traffic, notwithstanding the declarations, laws, and treaties which have interdicted and condemned it since 1815, the Duke of Wellington brought forward a memoir, containing observations as to what he considered the causes of the evil, and pointing out different measures calculated to put a stop to it. In this memoir, which is well drawn up, and displays much knowledge of the subject, the Duke, after adverting to the declaration of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and some other preliminary matters, proceeds to observe, that he has the means of proving that this detestable traffic has been since the year 1815, and is at this moment carried on to a greater extent than at any former period; that in seven months of the year 1821 not less than 30,000 human beings had been carried off from the coast of Africa; that not less than 352 vessels entered the rivers and ports of Africa, north of the equator, to purchase slaves, between July 1820 and October 1821, each of which was calculated to carry from 500 to 600 slaves; that this contraband traffic is openly carried on under protection of the French flag, and, in very many instances, by vessels fitted out in France, and commanded and manned by Frenchmen; that the numbers put on board in each venture are far from being proportioned to the proper capacity of the vessel, in consequence, of which the mortality is frightful to a degree unknown since the attention of mankind was first called to the horrors of this traf

fic; that owing to this state of things the contraband trade is attended by circumstances much more horrible than any thing that has been known, even when the traffic was openly carried on by all the maritime nations of Europe;

that the attempts at prevention have tended to increase the aggregate of human sufferings, and the waste of human life, in the transport of slaves from the coast of Africa to the colonies, in a ratio far exceeding the increase of positive numbers carried off in slavery; and that, although the profits of a voyage (of which two or three may be made in the year) are 300 per cent., the risks are so small, and the chances of detection, so as to become liable to the punishment which the French law inflicts, so few, and so little is that punishment commensurate with the of fence, even after conviction, that the insurance upon each voyage is not more than 15 per cent. The memoir then goes on to recommend the measures already alluded to; and with regard to the French Government, independently of the legislature, the esta blishment of a strict registry of slaves in the colonies, and the encouraging the capture of slave-ships, fraudulently carrying on a contraband trade under the French flag, by the grant of the vessel and equipments as prize to the captors, and of head-money for the negroes captured.

To this memoir, the answer of the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian Plenipotentiaries was so far favourable; that of the Russian Ministers, in particular, recommending "a general suspension of all commerce whatever with the only power which has not hitherto forbidden the slave trade to the north of the line," and that such an arrangement should be formed between the maritime powers, " as would enable them to sup press the traffic among their respective subjects, by declaring it to be an act of piracy." The reply of the French Ministers is a tissue of shuffling, hypocrisy, and nonsense. They state their readiness to sign any declaration collectively with the other powers, “tending to put down this odious commerce, and inflict upon the guilty the vengeance

of the laws;" but they, at the same time, declare, that " to apply to the slave trade the punishment of piracy," which is the only effectual method of "inflicting upon the guilty the vengeance of the laws," is "beyond the competency of political conference." "When the punishment of death is in question, it is the judicial or legislative bodies that are called upon to enact it ;" and these, according to them, "ought to wait the approbation of public opinion." "To prohibit the importation of the colonial produce of states which have not abolished the slave trade, is a measure,' they assure us, "which would only affect Portugal; and she must be heard in her own cause;" as if she had. ever before obtained a hearing on this subject." The French Government," we are informed, "will take the registration of slaves into their consideration, when the time for doing so shall have arrived," and then "it may possibly be permitted;" although they cannot disguise their opinion, that "such interference would be a violation of the right of property," which, they have somehow contrived to find out, that "the laws of Great Britain respect even its extravagances and caprices." To Lord Wellington's recommendation, that vessels detected in fraudulently carrying on a contraband traffic in slaves, under the French flag, should be made lawful prize to the captors, they answer, that the "French constitution abolishes confiscation ;" and with regard to the right of mutual search, however limited, they declare, that" if the French Government could ever consent to it, it would have the most disastrous consequences." It is clear that, from a Government which could descend to such base and contemptible subterfuges, and by such paltry quibbles attempt at once to evade its own positive engagements, and to prolong the miseries of a traffic which it had joined with the other powers in anathematizing, no good whatever is to

be looked for. A final conference was, however, held on the 28th of November, when a series of resolutions respecting the abolition of the slave trade were adopted by the Congress; but these are conceived in terms so vague and general, and so cautiously avoid condescending on any means for carrying into effect the object which the powers profess to have in view, that they can be viewed in no other light than as a ruse diplomatique, to give the go-by to the question altogether. We therefore unite with the directors in expressing our "bitter disappointment" at the result of these conferences, and in considering a total suppression of the increased and increasing horrors of the contraband slave trade as 66 more distant than ever." France, however, does not stand alone in this opposition to the claims of humanity. Portugal, which has all along manifested extraordinary reluctance to accede to any measures calculated to effect the total suppression of the slave trade, has refused to ratify an article, mentioned in last report, and providing that when there shall be clear and undeniable proof that slaves have been put on board a vessel for the purpose of illegal traffic, such vessel may be justly detained, and finally condemned by the commissioners, although such slaves shall not have been actually found on board at the time of the capture. This proceeding is the more extraordinary, as, in a note dated in April 1821, and addressed to the Rt. Hon. E. Thornton, his Britannic Majesty's Minister at Rio Janeiro, M. de Pinheiro Ferreira, his Portuguese Majesty's Secretary of State, informs Mr Thornton, that he has received the King of Portugal's orders to declare officially that his Most Faithful Majesty accedes to the article conceived in the very terms of Lord Castlereagh's dispatch, and has in consequence transmitted to his envoy at the Court of London the necessary powers for presenting that ar

ticle, and for signing and subscribing it on its approval; and further, the article itself bears to have been signed, and sealed by the Plenipotentiaries, duly authorised ad hoc, by their respective sovereigns." Yet, in the face of all this diplomatic formality, no further step appears to have been taken by the Portuguese Government, and the treaty still remains unratified.

Certain difficulties having arisen in the execution of the treaty of May 1818, between Great Britain and the Netherlands, for preventing the traffic in slaves, three additional and explanatory articles, intended to obviate these difficulties, were agreed upon at Brussels in the months of December and January last. The first, after stating that vessels employed in the slave trade had sometimes unshipped their cargoes immediately prior to their being visited by ships of war, and had thus found means to evade forfeiture, declares that if there shall be clear and undeniable proof of slaves having been put on board vessels for illegal traffic, such vessels shall be detained by the cruisers, and finally condemned by the commissioners. The second provides for supplying the places of such commissioners, judges, and arbitrators, appointed under the treaty of 1818, as may be absent from illness, unavoidable causes, or leave granted by their government. The third provides, that upon proof of any ship or vessel, subject to examination under the treaty or additional articles, and detained upon the coast of Africa within certain limits, falling, in her outfit and equipment, within certain designations therein particularly specified, and calculated to facilitate the detection of vessels employed in the slave trade, such ship or vessel shall be deemed

prima facie to have been actually engaged in the slave trade, unless such presumption shall be satisfactorily rebutted by contrary evidence, upon failure of which she shall be condemned as lawful prize.

Two additional and explanatory articles to the treaty of Madrid, September 23. 1817, have also been agreed to, between the King of Spain and his Britannic Majesty, and are in substance the same with the two first articles which have been entered into with the King of the Netherlands; but no provision has been made with the Spanish Government, similar to that contained in the third additional article to the Dutch treaty.

Although the directors have not had it in their power to present so ample details as on former occasions, there is no reason to believe that any relaxation has taken place, during the last year, in the French contraband slave trade. It ought to be recollected, that the French Government having uniformly refused to submit to any international regulations on this subject, their flag necessarily prevents the possibility of either search or detention; and it is only, therefore, by accident, or indirectly, that information can be obtained. Yet the case of the Vigilante *, captured in the river Bonny, on the 15th of April 1822, exemplifies some of the worst horrors of this nefarious traffic, as well as the audacity with which it is carried on. Sir R. Mends, commanding a squadron on the coast of Africa, stationed there by the British Government to prevent the infraction of the laws for the abolition of the slave trade, sent Lieutenant Mildmay, with the boats belonging to his vessel, to reconnoitre the river Bonny, a notorious rendezvous of slave vessels. Soon after the boats crossed