HORRORS OF FRENCH SLAVE TRADE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 50, 23 June 1858, Page 4

HORRORS OF FRENCH SLAVE TRADE.

England is aware already that the government of Louis Napoleon have decided on restoring the slave trade, under the name of free engagements made on the coast of Africa, and England has already protested against that crime. What she had but too well foreseen has happened. From its first operation, the human flesh trade of 1858 has shown itself as deadly as the old system. On the 3rd January last, the Stella, a steamer belonging to the French firm of Regis, landed at Basse-Terre, Guadaloupe, a cargo of negroes. She had taken 827 on board from the coast of Africa, on the 4th December, and a month afterwards, having completed her voyage, she landed only 647. The Stella took her cargo at Loanga, Cabenda, and Longuebonne, under the protection of the French cruisers under the orders of M. Protet, and with the full knowledge of the English cruisers ; according to certain planters of Guadaloupe, it is a battle won. The blacks were brought on board ship, and it was there that an agent of the French authorities, commissioned by Commander Protet, presided at the mock ceremony of their voluntary engagement. Those who have arrived atGuadalcupe are all young men, of eighteen or twenty years of age; the oldest is not twenty-five. This shows sufficiently that the coming of age of the engaged has not been waited for to contract with them for their free emigration. This may be termed kidnapping. The captain of the Stella, whose name is Oddo, seems to have received none but verbal instructions from the shipowners ; for, on his death taking place on the coast of Africa, the master, named Bernard, who took the command, found in the papers on board neither advice, orders, or plan to be guided by. This was a careful provision. Nothing thus could be known of the ways and means if the ship should be seized. Captain Bernard wished above all things to have a full cargo, and, as far as can be judged, he had on board when he left Longuebonne from 820 to 850 negroes. The Stella being a vessel of GOO tons at most, her engines of 80-horse power, it is to conceive what 800 or 850 human beiDgs huddled up together in the hold of a ship of that tonnage had to suffer. They were soon thinned by dysentery, occasioned by the vitiated atmosphere and the heat of their prison, added to the want of exercise and bad food. The captain confesses having lost, on an average, six men per day ; altogether 180 during oue month's passage. This is more easy to believe, because the local administration of Guadaloupe has not allowed any details about this to be made public. They merely declared that the Stella had landed 647 immigrants — 497 men and 150 women. The poor wretches on lauding were, both men and women, almost naked, worn out, wasted, and in a deplorable state. It was necessary to send many o. ( them to the hospital to restore their strength. Nothing had been prepared to receive the free immigrants, and tbe spot on which they were hurriedly penned was so wellchoseu, that the inhabitants themselves, who were called upon to draw lots for them, complained much of having been obliged to "trample in the dirt as if they had been in the cattle market." The lots drawn, every oue had to take away his own as quickly as possible. But the Stella, being without instructions, had landed at Basse-Terre, instead of going to Point-a-Pitre, the part of the island for which the greatest portion of the cargo had been bespoken. They were compelled, therefore, to hire coasting vessels to carry to their destination the newly landed. The Nouvelle-Active, into which schooner 100 were crowded, was despatched as soon as possible ; but, unfortunately, she struck, soon after her departure, on a rock in the Sante channel, and foundered with all hands. Of the 100 slaves, ten had died previously to the foundering of the schooner. — Daily News.

Mr. Mechi on Agriculture. — At a meeting of the Coggeshall Agricultural Society, Mr. Mechi, in the course of the evening, rose, and said : An allusion had been made to his year of office and his return among them. He could not help comparing his position fourteen or fifteen years ago with what it was now. He then was considered little less than an impostor, or the promoter of some wild and visionary schemes, but he knew that he had strong prejudices to encounter, and that the truth would prevail. For instance, when he put up a steam-engine, it was thought the most absurd act he could perform ; and now he had the gratification of seeing his neighbours possessed each of his steam-engine, and he heard of one gentleman in Chelmsford having as many as thirteen, which he let out upon hire. The farmer had now found it to be his interest to cast away the flail, which cost one shilling, as an instrument for thrashing his corn, and to use a machine which cost as, notwithstanding the enormous disparity in expense, the steam-engine would produce a cheaper result. The other day he went down to Wandsworth, with Mr. Caird and Mr. Morton, to see a scheme of railway adapted for agricultural purposes, patented by Mr. Halkett, by which he promises to plough land at a cost of Is. 7d. per acre, hoe it at Is. 3d., and get in the harvest at Is. per acre, carrying the manure, &c, of the farm at one penny per ton per mile, leaving a margin for the interest of the cost of railway, which could be adapted to the farm at a cost of £24 per acre. By this scheme he might plough his land by night as well as by day, if he pleased ; and, if it were necesaary for the production of a good crop that the land should be brought in contact with the air, they would see how important it was to have a long fallow. Mr. Mechi further described the nature of this implement, and expressed his opinion in favour of its practicability. With reference to the appropriation of sewage manure to the soil, he said Professor Way had been sent to Milan for the purposeof examining the drainage, so as to adopt some scheme for saving the sewage of London, which was of immense value, but which now ran into the Thames, and was entirely lost. He believed the difficulty presented was merely a test of scientific skill, and that it only required some mechanical contrivance to accomplish the object. There were yet many things which might be doneby agriculturists to great advan-

tage ; but he could not forget how much some had done, and that there was one gentleman present who every year burnt at least one thousand tons of earth into ashes, which, laid upon heavy clay land, greatly increased its fertility. Hia experience of French agriculturists convinced him that they were not behind themselves in point of intelligence ; but he was also convinced of the vast superiority of Englishmen in point of capital and means, the cry of France being, " Where is the money to come from ?" Upon the question of thiu sowing, he was glad to find a great change of public opinion in favour of the adoption of such a plan ; one bushel per acre was enough seed upon his land, and, though he would not lay that down as a principle, he would recommend them to try it, and he was certain of the result. — European Times.