It must further be admitted, that owing to the equipment article in our recent Treaties, which has prevented the actual Slaver from hovering on the Coast in safety, a large portion of the goods necessary for the Slave Trade is driven into Vessels innocent in their apparent character, but subserving the purposes of the Slaver; and that, in consequence, a somewhat larger portion of this kind of traffic may possibly now pass directly from the English or other Merchant to the Coast of Africa, than heretofore, when those supplies went round by Cuba and Brazil in the Slavers themselves, without risk of capture. Now an opinion has prevailed, and that in very influential quarters, and it runs through Dr. Madden’s Report, that at least such direct dealing is illegal, and punishable under the Statute of the 5 Geo. IV, c. 5; and if not so already, the same parties would urge on Parliament to make it so by new enactment; and some even would extend it to all connexion, however indirect, in which a guilty knowledge of the destination of the goods or of the Vessel could be presumed. Now this view of the Act is not unnatural, owing to the general and comprehensive nature of its language, and to the desire which must naturally exist to understand it in as comprehensive a sense as possible for the obstruction of so odious and detestable a traffic as the Slave Trade. But looking closely at the language of the Act itself, and to the interpretation put upon it by the Law Officers of the Crown, as alluded to by the Under Secretary of the Colonies, in his letter to Dr. Madden, April 1842, and to the opinion of the Attorney General in the case inserted in the Evidence, _we cannot affirm it to be illegal now_, and we shall presently state to The House why, however reluctantly we may come to the conclusion, _we are not prepared to recommend that it should be made so_.