"The natural bond Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire-- And having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause, Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey." Mr. Irving, the factor whom we have named as having received the peremptory and unlimited order from the merchants of Cape Coast Castle, had won their confidence, by the remarkable success which had attended his negociations with the king and principal grandees of Whidáh, in which delightful part of Africa he had resided for some years. Nothing, perhaps, more strongly proves the indurating power of the love of gain upon the heart, and the baneful influence of the habitual view of oppression on the better feelings of the soul, than the change which generally takes place in the characters of the young men whose official duty places them in situations like that filled by Mr. Irving. It has, indeed, been most justly and impressively observed, that it is impossible for any one to be accustomed to carry away miserable beings, by force, from their country and endearing ties, to keep them in chains, to see their tears, to hear their mournful lamentations, to behold the dead and the dying mingled together, to keep up a system of severity towards them in their deep affliction, to be constant witnesses of the misery of exile, bondage, cruelty, and oppression, which, together, form the malignant character of this nefarious traffic, without losing all those better feelings it should be the study of man to cherish; or without contracting those habits of moroseness and ferocity which brutalize the nature. Irving, like many other youths, had been induced by an ardent curiosity, and an enterprising spirit, to engage as a writer to the Royal African Company [1], at a time when the traffic in slaves was legally pursued, as one source of riches to a great commercial nation. Yet it may with candour be presumed, that he, and many a youth entering upon the same path, with the same laudable impulses, had they anticipated the peril to which they exposed their humane principles, by engaging themselves in a trade so repugnant to nature, religion, and justice, would rather have undergone personal hazard and difficulty in their native land, so that they might have fostered that divine principle, which is the noble and distinguishing characteristic of man--of free-born man.