These remarks ought ever to be borne in mind in all our considerations and reasonings concerning the state of society in Africa. They are sometimes, however, forgotten by the very writers themselves by whom they have been made. Our opponents have availed themselves of the ambiguities of language; and the state of these domestic Slaves, who are styled the bulk of the African population, is spoken of in terms applicable only to the condition of those wretched beings who are destined for the Slave market, and who are waiting in fetters for a purchaser. The existence of this milder species of vassalage may even facilitate the complete civilization of the negro nations, by having familiarized their minds to the gradations of rank, and by having accustomed them to submit to the restraints of social life, and to be controlled by the authority of law and custom. [Sidenote: Opponents argument from the cruelty of the African despots, and particularly from those of the King of Dahomy.] Much use was likewise attempted to be made of the cruelties of some of the African monarchs, and especially of a certain king of Dahomy. “It was mercy to the poor Negroes to rescue them from such barbarities.” But the argument was only a proof of the wretched straits to which our opponents must be reduced, when they called in the aid of such an auxiliary. Yet was this argument urged with a grave face by men of education and intelligence; and it may therefore deserve a serious, though a brief answer. It is probably true that the kingdom of Dahomy had the misfortune to be governed by a cruel tyrant. His invasion of the neighbouring kingdom of Whidah, was attended with a dreadful slaughter; and it may be fact, that, like a celebrated oriental conqueror, Nadir Shah, he thatched his palace with the heads of his prisoners. His cruelties, and still more those of the Dahoman monarchs in general, must however have been excessively exaggerated, since Mr. Devaynes, whose personal knowledge of Dahomy was greater than that of any other person, and who, though not favourably inclined to our cause, delivered his evidence with great frankness and candour, declared that the Dahomans were a very happy people. But, not to insist on the unfairness of attempting to justify the Slave Trade in general, by the cruelties said to be practised in one particular district, which constitutes not perhaps a fiftieth part of the region from which the Slaves are supplied; not to urge, moreover, that, but for the Slave Trade, this whole system of superstition would probably have been ere now at an end; the cruelties of the Dahoman court are the effect of the native superstitions, and it therefore seems very doubtful, whether or not the Slave Trade lessens the number of the victims: while, as the very witness, who dwelt most strongly on this argument, himself allowed; it leaves their place, by having taken off the convicts who would otherwise