David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ I had with great labour and pains procured an order from the King of the Netherlands, that the cargo of a particular slave-ship seized in the act of smuggling in slaves (consisting of five young Africans in the prime of health and youth) should be free, according to the treaty, and delivered over to the Government — instead of which, they sold to the planters all these fine young Africans, and took an equal number of old superannuated and crippled negroes, and giving them a nominal liberty, sent word that the order of the King had been complied with. ”

“ He himself thought that his own death was at hand, and wished to leave behind him a strong and sounding protest against the evasion of the treaty, and against the specially polluted and cruel slavery of the Dutch colony, and also against (to use his own epithets) “the revolting, frightful, all-crime-comprising, all-depravity-inducing, all-humanity-deriding, heaven-outraging, and demoniacal practice, the West Indian Slave Trade.” ”

“ He introduced many salutary regulations, as well for the protection of the slaves as the general prosperity of the colony — regulations which reflected more severely upon the prior local administration and the general moral character of the colony than any charges either expressed or implied in the narrative of Outalissi, and would themselves have been a gratuitous libel, if these charges had not been substantially true. ”

“ Wilberforce had to trouble his head about the matter, with Ireland and the press-gang under his nose.”
“It’s rather hard upon Mr. Wilberforce, too,” said Edward, “or indeed upon any man, to condemn him for doing anything because he could not do everything. ”

“ Outalissi is a slave, the chief of an African village, who with all his people was conveyed to Dutch Guiana in a French ship commanded by Captain Legere. Bob Jackson, an English sailor, was one of the crew, and afterwards made a deposition in the presence of Captain Bentinck, of which the following is the substance:—
“Captain Ledger, as they calls him, seeing me unemployed, said I was a good likely sea-looking lad, and asked if I had a mind to take a run with him to Africa for a cargo of mules. ”

“ Lefroy was selected to be the British Judge or Commissioner. This was in the spring of 1819. The appointment was to be for ten years, and a retiring salary was promised. The only obstacle in Mr. Lefroy’s mind was the fearfully pestilential climate; and he put the question whether, in the event of the failure of his health, he might retire after eight years’ service. The following letter answered his question; it also exhibits the preliminaries of his departure for Surinam, the capital of the Dutch colony:—
Viscount Castlereagh to Christopher Edward Lefroy, Esq. ”

“ Captain Legère, for example, never stows above three mules to a ton, or loses more than a third of his cargo on a voyage, and his decks are as clean nearly as those of a man-of-war. I will not, however, deny that it would be desirable to avoid even such a waste of valuable life and muscle as that ”

“ Castlereagh.”⁠ He arrived safely at Surinam, but soon discovered that it was not in Dutch Guiana that men of authority had any desire or intention to suppress the slave trade. Successive Governors were not unfriendly, neither were his brother-commissioners unfaithful ”