I found that Harry's interest in the question of slavery was not new. In Europe, it had pained him deeply to see the injury done to the cause of freedom by our tolerance of this vestige of barbarism,--in truth, a legacy from the arbitrary systems we have rejected, but declared by the enemies of the people to be the necessary concomitant of republican institutions. He has studied, as few have, the history of slavery in the United States, and its working, political and social. It has not escaped him, that, though limited in its material domain, it has not been so in its moral empire: North, as well as South, our true development has been impeded. His great love for his country, his delight in what it has already attained, his happy hopes for its future, only quicken his sight to the dangers which threaten it from this single quarter. He sees that not only the national harmony is threatened by it, but the national virtue;--for a habit of accepting inconsistencies and silencing scruples must infallibly impair that native rectitude of judgment and sincerity of conscience through which the voice of the people is the voice of God. It is this perception, not less than the strong call the suffering of the weak makes upon every manly heart, that has brought Harry Dudley to the conviction that the obliteration of slavery is the work of our time. We talked of the slave; of his future, which depends not more on what we do for him than on what he is able to do for himself. We spoke of the self-complacent delusion cherished among us, that he brought his faults with him from Africa, and has gained his virtues here; of the apprehension consequent on this error, that what is original will cleave to him, while that which has been imposed is liable to fall from him with his chain. We talked of the mysterious charm possessed by the name of Africa, while its wonders and wealth were only divined and still unproved. We talked of Henry the Navigator; of the great designs so long brooded in his brain; of the sudden moment of resolution, followed up by a quarter of a century of patience; of the final success which was to have such results to the world,--in the African slave-trade, which he, of Christian princes, was the first to practise,--in the discovery of America by Columbus, to whose enterprises those of Henry immediately led. If we could suppose that man ever, indeed, anticipated the decrees of Providence, or obtained by importunity a grant of the yet immature fruits of destiny, it might seem to have been when Henry of Portugal overcame the defences of the shrouded world, and opened new theatres to the insane covetousness of Western Europe. We cannot suppose it. Doubtless mankind needed the terrible lesson; and, happily, though the number of the victims has been immense, that of the criminals has been more limited.