In the mean time, an opposition, not to the slave-trade alone, but to slavery, too, gradually strengthened itself within the empire. Manumission became frequent, and the laws made it very easy. A society was organized under the protection of the emperor, which, every year, in open church, solemnly liberated a number of slaves; and in 1856 the English Embassador wrote home that the government had communicated to him their resolution gradually to abolish slavery in every part of the empire. The grand step which they have now taken has no doubt been impelled by the example of our own country. It is one of the many precious fruits which have sprung, and are destined yet to spring, from the soil which we watered so freely with patriot blood. Information generally, with regard to Brazil, is scanty, especially in connection with the blacks; but in all the walks of life, men of color are found in that country. In the Brazilian army, many of the officers are mulattoes, and some of a very dark hue. The prejudice of color is not so prominent here, as in some other slaveholding countries. CHAPTER XXVIII. CUBA AND PORTO RICO. Cuba, the stronghold of Spain, in the western world, has labored under the disadvantages of slavery for more than three hundred years. The Lisbon merchants cared more for the great profits made from the slave-trade, than for the development of the rich resources of this, one of the most beautiful of the West India Islands, and therefore, they invested largely in that nefarious traffic. The increase of slaves, the demand for sugar and the products of the tropics, and the inducement which a race for wealth creates in the mind of man, rapidly built up the city of Havana, the capital of the Island. The colored population of Cuba, like the whites, have made but little impression on the world outside of their own southern home. There is, however, one exception in favor of the blacks. In the year 1830, there appeared in Havana a young colored man, whose mother had recently been brought from Africa. His name was Placido, and his blood was unmixed. Being with a comparatively kind master, he found time to learn to read, and began developing the genius which at a later period showed itself. The young slave took an interest in poetry, and often wrote poems which were set to music and sung in the drawing-rooms of the most refined assemblies in the city. His young master, paying his addresses to a rich heiress, the slave was ordered to write a poem embodying the master’s passion for the young lady. Placido acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of the lover, who copied the epistle in his own hand, and sent it on its mission. The slave’s compositions were so much admired that they found their way into the newspapers; but no one knew the negro as their author.