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297 Series III Volume IV- Serial 125 - Union Letters, Orders, Reports

Page 297 UNION AUTHORITIES.

down as purchased by the British, 20,000 by the Franch, 10,000 by the Portuguese, and the rest by the Danes and Dutch.

It would appear from a statistical table given in another part of the same volume that these estimates fall short of the truth. This table gives the total number of vessels sailing annually from Liverpool, from the year 1751 to the year 1787, distinguishing the slaves and giving their tonnage, from which it appears that about one-tenth of all the vessels that sailed from that port during the above thirty-six years were engaged in the slave-trade, and that their tonnage ran up from a little over 5,000 tons in 1751 to about 15,000 in 1786 and 1787. a But, as we shall show hereafter, the number of slaves carried averaged over two to a ton; consequently British ships from the port of Liverpool alone carried upward of 30,000 annually.

Another table b shows that the tonnage of African slavers from all the ports of Great Britain was, in 1787, 22,263 tons. Consequently the annual number of slaves transported to America, at that time, in British bottoms, was upward of 45,000, instead of 38,000, as estimated. In this proportion the total estimate, including vessels of all countries would be run up to nearly 90,000 slaves a year. The figures seem to indicate that even this is below the actual number.

The calculations produced the French Committee of Inquiry of 1848 place the number of slaves exported from 1788 to 1840 at from 100,000 to 140,000 a year, and from 1840 to 1848 at from 50,000 to 80,000. c

The rate after 1848 continued to diminish. Nevertheless, in 1860 it was still nearly 30,000 a year. d

These figures enable us to calculate with approximate accuracy the extent of the slave-trade from 1788 to 1860; that is to say; for the seventy-two last years of its course, thus:

Annual deportation of slaves from the year 1788 the year 1840- say,

fifty-two years, at an average of 120,000 a year............................................6,240,000

Annual deportation of slaves from 1840 to 1848-say, eight years,. at an average of 65,000 a year....................520,000

Annual deportation of slaves from 1848 to 1860, twelve years, at an average of 30,000 a year..........................360,000

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--Total in seventy-two years......................7,120,000

What annual rate we ought to assume as a fair average for the to centuries preceding 1788, during which, as Cochin reminds us, "all Europe abandoned itself openly to the negro slave-trade," a it is somewhat difficult to determine. In the report by the Lords of the Committee of Council, already referred to, is a table f showing the annual

a Lords of Council Report, Minutes of Evidence before Committee of the Whole Houyse, p. 49.

b Lords of Council Report, Part IV, Numbers 1.

c. See Cochin, Vol. 2, p. 310.

Lord Palmerston, from his place in the House of Lords, July 26, 1844, said: "According to the report of Messrs. Vendervelt and Buxton, from 120,000 to 150,000 slaves are landed annually in America." This calculation applied to the early years of the present century.

d When of the present century.

d When we remember that 240,000 were yearly carried away from Africa while this year the number has not reached 30,000 we should neither denty the progress nor abandon the hope a complete suppression of this traffic. (speech of Lord John Russell in Parliament, June 8, 1860.)

At least 30,000 slaves are annually imported into Cuba. (Speech of Mr. Cave in Parliament, June 8, 1860.)

e Au dix septieme at au dix-huitieme siecle l"Europe entiere es livre ouvertement a la traite des noirs. (Chochin, L"A bolition de l"Esclavage, Tom. 2, p. 281.)

f Lords of Council Report, Jamaica. Appendix, Part III< Sheet p.


Page 297 UNION AUTHORITIES.