- ferent branches had great facility of access to the heart
of Africa, it is probable that the traffic was carried on more vigorously here than anywhere else on the coast.
But the abolition of the slave-trade by England, and the presence of the British squadron on the coast, has nearly broken up the trade.
The number of vessels now engaged in carrying on a lawful trade in these rivers is between fifty and sixty; and so decided are the advantages reaped by the natives from this change in their commercial affairs, that it is not believed they would ever revert to it again, even if all outward restraints were taken away. So long as the African seas were given up to piracy and the slave-trade, and the aborigines in consequence were kept in constant excitement and warfare, it was almost impossible either to have commenced or continued a missionary station on the coast for the improvement of the natives. And the fact that there was none anywhere between Sierra Leone and the Cape of Good Hope, previous to the year 1832, shows that it was regarded as impracticable.[1]
Christianity does not invoke the aid of the sword; but when she can shield from the violence of lawless men by the intervention of "the powers that be," or when the providence of God goes before and smoothes down the waves of discord and strife, she accepts it as a grateful boon, and discharges her duty with greater alacrity and cheerfulness.
Throughout all the region where the slave-trade was once carried on, there is great decline in business, except where that traffic has been replaced by legitimate commerce or agriculture. Nor could it well be
- ↑ Wilson's "Western Africa."
