Page:The slave trade of east Africa.djvu/12

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circumstances of this slave trade, with some notice of the remedial measures already adopted by the Church Missionary Society.

We are indebted for the information we propose to supply, to a pamphlet published by the Society, compiled from the official correspondence upon the East African Slave Trade, to a memorial recently presented by a deputation from the Society to the Duke of Argyll, as Secretary of State for India, and to the Parliamentary Blue Books of recent Sessions, on the Slave Trade.

It was in the year 1822 that the attention of the British Government was first called to the traffic in slaves carried on nominally between the African and Persian dominions of the Imaum of Muscat, but in reality between his African dominions and the very ports on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to which the slaves are now carried. The dominions of the Imaum at that time comprised the petty state of Muscat, on the Southern shore of the Persian Gulf, and a large portion of the African coast, extending from Cape Delgado, at about 11 degrees South Latitude, to a port called Jubb, about 1 degree South of the Equator, including the large and important islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Monfia. The British Government, while declaring its intention of suppressing foreign slave trading, refused to meddle with slavery as a domestic institution, and accordingly, in the case of the Imaum of Muscat, determined to permit the slave trade between port and port in his own dominions; and a treaty to this effect was arranged between our Government and the Imaum. This treaty, dated 10th September, 1822, stipulates that the Imaum will abolish the trade in slaves between his dominions and every Christian country. By the treaty and a subsequent convention, authority to search and detain Muscat vessels was given to Her Majesty's ships, and the ships of war belonging to the East Indian Company; and by a further agreement, concluded between the Imaum of Muscat and Her Majesty the Queen, on the 2nd October, 1845, the Imaum agreed to prohibit, under the severest penalties, not only the export of slaves from his African dominions, but also the im-