committed an act in contravention of the Slave Treaties, and your Excellency will perceive by Lieutenant Hoskins' explanation, that the declarations of the captains of the vessels boarded in the river by the Dee's boat are not borne out by the facts as an infringement of the 4th Section of Article III of the Slave Treaty dated the 3rd of July, 1842. In one case that officer, on his passage from Quillimane to the Dee, called alongside the brigantine Esperanza (which had just arrived from Mozambique) to procure information of the movements of Her Majesty's steamer Castor, and the other was that by the dingy of the Dee (a small boat, never used for boarding vessels officially), with 3 or 4 officers without warrants, orders, or arms, calling privately alongside the brig Amizade, for the purpose of purchasing some spirits of turpentine; which took place several hours after that vessel had anchored. The Dee is peculiarly situated, being a transport steamer with small sails, and quite unfit for the open anchorage outside the river at this season; and not having sufficient coal to take her to the Cape of Good Hope at this time of the year, until a supply which I expect to arrive from Johanna, makes it necessary she should seek shelter in a secure port, which I consider Quillimane to be. In conclusion, as your Excellency states in the 4th paragraph of your despatch, that you do not know that Treaties exist between Portugal and Great Britain which contain such broad concessions, as free ingress and egress for the ships of war into the ports of both nations, I beg to refer you to Article XVIII of the Treaty of Peace and Alliance dated the 10th of July, 1654, subsequently amended by another Treaty, dated 16th May, 1703,* vide Article XIX; and I trust your Excellency, upon a consideration of these strong and friendly conditions, will see fit to remove your objections to the anchorage taken up by the Dee, and be pleased to order that she wait her supplies in her present position. I am sorry that want of provisions obliges me to repair immediately to Mauritius for a supply, but I have left directions with the commanding officer off this port that should your Excellency still require it, the steamer is to be removed into the Well, where she will not interfere in any way with the Portuguese trade, although I must confess that I do not approve of it as a safe anchorage for a vessel of her description. I have, &c. The Governor-General of Mozambique. SIR, C. WYVILL. (Inclosure 10.)-Lieutenant Hoskins to Commodore Wyvill. Dee, Quillimane, August 27, 1850. In reply to your order of this date, desiring me to explain the circumstances attending the boarding of the Portuguese brig Amizade * Vol. I. Page 501. and schooner Esperanza, as shown by the declarations of their respective captains, I beg to state that being at Quillimane, and hearing of the arrival off the town of a schooner from Mozambique, I called alongside her on my passage to the Dee, for the purpose of procuring information of the movements of the Castor, and the only questions put to the captain were on that subject. Again, with regard to the brig, during my absence from the Dee, the dingy of that vessel with 3 or 4 officers, including one from the Dart, proceeded on board her for the purpose of buying, if possible, some articles of which they stood in need; but I cannot learn that they gave the captain any cause to believe that they visited him with a view to ascertain the legitimacy of her traffic, and certainly they had no papers or authority to make any other visit. I have, &c. Commodore Wyvill. SIR, (Inclosure 11.)- Chart. A. H. HOSKINS. No. 403.-Viscount Palmerston to Sir Hamilton Seymour. Foreign Office, February 19, 1851. I HEREWITH transmit to you a copy of a despatch from Her Majesty's Commissioners in the Mixed British and Portuguese Commission at the Cape of Good Hope, on the subject of the state of the Slave Trade in the Portuguese possessions on the east coast of Africa. Her Majesty's Government have received with much satisfaction the honourable testimony conveyed in the inclosed paper as to the upright conduct of Senhor do Valle, the Portuguese GovernorGeneral, with regard to the suppression of the Slave Trade; and I have to instruct you to communicate to the Government of Her Most Faithful Majesty the sentiments of Her Majesty's Government upon the subject. I am, &c. Sir Hamilton Seymour. PALMERSTON. No. 412.-Sir H. Seymour to Viscount Palmerston.-—(Rec. March 15.) As I have communicated the whole of these papers to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the note which I addressed to his Excellency, and of which a copy is herewith inclosed, entered into no particulars of the misconduct of the Governor of Quillimane. They were the less necessary, as I had previously explained to Count Tojal the whole circumstances of the case, and had observed to him, as I have again done in my note, that the Governor's inhospitable conduct, in ordering away a ship belonging to Her Majesty's Navy, is probably to be explained by the desire of favouring the trade in slaves, and consequently of discountenancing those by whose efforts this vile traffic is repressed. Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B. I have, &c. G. H. SEYMOUR. (Inclosure.)—Sir Hamilton Seymour to Count Tojal. M. LE COMTE, Lisbon, March 6, 1851. I HAVE received orders from Her Majesty's Government to lay before your Excellency the accompanying papers relating to the very extraordinary proceeding of the Governor of Quillimane, in ordering the departure of Her Majesty's ship Dee, which had taken refuge in the river. This arbitrary order was founded, as was stated by the Governor, upon the grounds of the entry of the Dee into the River Quillimane being a violation of the stipulations of the Protocol of the 12th August, 1847, which ought, as he asserts, to have prevented the presence of a ship of war at a place where a Portuguese authority was established. I need not, I am sure, comment to your Excellency upon the futility of the objection thus raised; and I content myself, therefore, with remarking that the Governor's proceedings are so little to be iustified by Treaty stipulations, and are so contrary to the friendly conduct observed by the Government of Portugal towards the ships of Her Majesty's Navy, that a suspicion is unavoidably raised of this conduct having been prompted by a desire to favour slave-dealing, and therefore of acting with harshness and injustice towards those who are engaged in the repression of that detestable traffic. With these feelings, the Governor appears to have forgotten that a ship of the British Navy was at the time, not in pursuit of slavers, but in request of refuge and security. I avail, &c. Count Tojal. G. H. SEYMOUR. No. 416.-Sir H. Seymour to Viscount Palmerston.-(Rec. March 25.) THE Portuguese Government being desirous of introducing the growth of cotton into their African possessions, have imported a quantity of cotton-seed from Maranhao, and are expecting a further supply from New York. The culture, should it succeed, as there is every reason to believe will be the case, will in more than one way become an object of great importance to Portugal. It will furnish return cargoes, the want of which has been much felt ever since the exportation of slaves from the African coast has been prohibited, and it will supply employment for a class of settlers who are beginning to arrive in considerable numbers in the colonies of Western Africa. For some years past an annual emigration of about 4,000 persons has taken place from Portugal to Brazil; the tide seems now to be turning, and for the last 2 years a considerable number of Portuguese labourers and workmen have quitted Brazil in search of occupation in the Portuguese African possessions. As I have alluded to persons emigrating from Brazil, I may take the opportunity of stating to your Lordship, that the eagerness with which the Brazilian Government is carrying out its new views respecting the Slave Trade appears to give rise occasionally to measures of rigour towards Portuguese subjects, against which this Government has grounds for expostulating. Among the Portuguese lately sent away from Brazil, there is one, I am informed, a wealthy merchant of the name of Fonseca, who had been suspected, and I believe with full reason, of being connected with the Slave Trade. The proceedings instituted against this man having, however, failed in establishing the fact, he nevertheless received orders from the Government to leave Brazil, four months only having been assigned to him for winding up his affairs. Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B. I have, &c. G. H. SEYMOUR. No. 419. Sir H. Seymour to Viscount Palmerston.—(Rec. March 25.) I HAVE the honour to transmit to your Lordship the copy of a note which I have received this evening from Count Tojal, inclosing the copy of a portaria which has been forwarded to the GovernorGeneral of the Cape de Verde Islands. These documents, of which I am sorry to say a want of time prevents my being able to offer your Lordship translations, are of some importance as connected with that very important object, the abolition of the Slave Trade. According to the inclosed portaria, a Portuguese arriving at the Cape de Verde Islands will not be allowed to bring more than ten domestic slaves with him; while in moving from one place to another of the island, it is forbidden him to be accompanied by more than two domestic slaves. The portaria further enjoins upon the Governor-General the care of using all means in his power towards the repression of slaving, the recommendation being grounded as well upon the engagements of the Convention of 1842, as upon general principles of humanity. I have, &c. Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B. G. H. SEYMOUR. (Inclosure 1.)-Count Tojal to Sir Hamilton Seymour. (Translation.) March 17, 1851. I HAVE the honour to acquaint you that the Minister of Marine has just communicated to me a portaria which was sent on the 21st day of February last to the Governor-General of the Province of Cape Verd, giving a clear explanation relative to the true meaning of Article V of the Treaty of 1842 for the suppression of the Slave Trade, in order thereby to avoid any abuses which might perhaps happen in the passage of slaves from one point of the province to another. In communicating to you this document I trust that the Government of Her Britannic Majesty will not fail to recognise the anxiety of Her Majesty's Government for the entire abolition of the said trade in the dominions of the Portuguese Crown. Sir Hamilton Seymour. I profit, &c. COUNT TOJAL. (Inclosure 2.)-Viscount Castellões to Count Tojal. (Translation.) Paço, February 21, 1851. THE official letter of the 22nd December, 1849, having been presented to Her Majesty the Queen, in which the Governor-General of the Province of Cape Verd, in virtue of the recommendations made in the Portaria of the 11th day of September of that year, for the more vigilant repression of the Traffic in Slaves, and faithful observance of the Treaty of the 3rd July, 1842, made with that object, states that he is persuaded that he can decidedly declare that the prohibitions against the Traffic in Slaves have not been violated in the Cape Verd Islands; as he cannot look upon the passage of slaves from one island to another as a violation of the same, when legally provided with a proper passport, with security as required by the law, and the security being finally redeemed by the document issued by the Chief of the Customs of the island to which they were bound, showing that the slave mentioned in the passport has landed there; and having heard in relation to this matter, the Councillor Procurator-General of the Crown, and the assistant of the Procurator-General of the Finances, Her Majesty has thought proper to command that it be declared to the Governor-General aforesaid, that the embarkation of slaves is permitted in 2 cases only:-1st. When a colonist leaves his residence definitively on the coast of Africa, and goes directly to establish himself on one of the islands of Cape Verd, Principe, or St. Thomé, when he may be accompanied by no more than 10 slaves, bona fide in the service of his house; 2nd. When a Portuguese colonist goes from one Portuguese possession where he resides, to another possession, also Portuguese, to return after a certain time to the place whence he set out, since he may in this case |