aged in defiance of law, and organized efforts are to be made to secure the repeal of the laws enacted by our fathers against this evil.
A Washington correspondent of the New York Herald, said to be an accurate and reliable writer, stated, on the authority of a United States senator, that the number of cargoes of African slaves landed on the coast of the United States, and smuggled into the interior, since May, 1858, a period of fifteen months, amounts to sixty or seventy,[1] and twelve vessels more are expected within ninety days. If grand juries and judges refuse to enforce the laws against the slave trade, it may be indefinitely increased. And from despatches received at the Navy Department, from the frigate Cumberland, dated at Porto Praya, April 15, 1859, it appears that during the last year the traffic has greatly increased. Those despatches state that yachts, schooners, and trading vessels are engaged in the business, and that small armed vessels are required, that can sail up the rivers and capture the slavers.
To encourage the trade, it is stated that eighteen slaveholders in Enterprise, Miss., recently pledged themselves to buy 1000 negroes, at a certain price, if they were brought from Africa.
But I will let the southern papers and politicians speak for themselves. They have spoken, and their dark schemes of infamy and cruelty are before the nation.
- ↑ This is higher than the estimate in Harper's Cyclopaedia, but that writer thinks that he understates the actual number.
