Had this system been attended by any the smallest amount of good, we should have kept out of account altogether the last item in this part of our subject, to which we shall refer the reader—that of expense; but when we find the money thus squandered has produced no earthly good whatever, when all parties confess that past measures have ended in utter failure, and that the slave trade, so far from being put down in all its forms of abomination and cruelty, is more vigorous than before; it is but right that we should exclaim against the waste of money that has been so lavishly incurred. Sir Fowell Buxton estimates the expense, on the part of Great Britain, in carrying out the slave trade preventive system up to 1839, at £15,000,000. We here quote from Mr. Laird: “Her Majesty’s late commissioner of inquiry on the coast of Africa, estimates the expense incurred there, _independently of the salaries and contingencies at home_, _of officers connected with the Anti-Slavery Treaty Department_, at £229,090 per annum; and by the finance accounts, I find, that for the year ending 5th January, 1842, £57,024 was paid out of the consolidated fund, to the officers and crews of her Majesty’s ships, for bounty on slaves, and tonnage on slave vessels. These gallant men, however, do not think they get what they ought to do; for there is a long correspondence about what they lose by the way the prizes are measured for tonnage-money; but it must be consolatory to them to know that they have, in one year, received £1,000 more prize money than their predecessors did in nine; the amount of prize money paid for capturing slaves, from 1814 to 1822, being only £56,017. In fact the African station has been improving in value, as a naval command, since the slave trade treaties; it is now the _bonne bouche_ of the Admiralty, and as such was given to the last first lord’s brothers. The mixed commission courts cost the country about £15,000 per annum; and as any dispute between the Portuguese, Spanish, or Brazilian judges is settled by an appeal to the dice box, the monotony of their lives is agreeably diversified; having retiring salaries, the patronage is valuable. The whole annual cost may be taken at £300,000.” {20} So much for this part of our subject. We may fairly conclude, that such a system is evidently vicious in principle: it has certainly failed to answer the end proposed, and the sooner it is given up the better. But let it not be for one moment understood that we consider slavery always will remain the curse and shame of humanity. We believe that it can be extinguished,—that it must be extinguished,—that, sooner or later, God’s sun shall shine every where upon the _free_, and that slavery shall remain alone in the dark records of earth’s misery and crime.