CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS-DISCOVERY OF THE CANARY ISLANDS-BETHENCOURT-PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA UNDER PRINCE HENRY. HE hiftory of every nation tells of some great tranfaction peculiar to that nation, fomething which aptly illuftrates the particular characteriftics of the people, which fhows, as we may fay, the part in human nature which that nation explains and renders vifible. In English history, the contest between the Crown and the Parliament: in that of France, the French Revolution: in that of Germany, the religious wars, are fuch tranfactions. All nations of the fame ftanding have portions of their history much alike; border wars, inteftine divifions, contefts about the fucceffion to the throne, uprifings against favorites, and other matters, about which if you put differ B ent names to the account of the fame tranfaction, it will do very well for the history of various nations, and nobody would feel any strangeness or irrelevancy in the ftory, whether it were told of France, England, Spain or Germany. Carrying on the idea to the history of our system, if the other worlds around us are peopled with beings not effentially unlike ourselves, there may be amongst them plenty of Alexanders, Cæfars, and Napoleons; all that conquering work of theirs may be commonplace enough in many planets, and thus the thing moft worthy to be noticed in the records of our Earth, may be its commercial flavery and its flave trade. For we may hope, though it be to our fhame, that they have not got these elsewhere. Black against us, and almoft unaccountably mean and cruel as much of this history is, ftill it is not altogether without fomething to be faid for us on the other fide; and is by no means destitute of the highest matters of human interest. The history of flavery is not merely an account of commercial greedinefs and reckless cruelty carried to the uttermoft; but embodies the efforts of the greatest men of many periods, their errors, their difputations, their bewilderments: it partakes largely of the nice questions canvaffed by ecclefiaftics; is combined with the intrigues of courts and cabinets; and, alas! is borne on the winds by the refolute daring of hardy mariners and far-feeing discoverers-men who should have been foremost in the attack upon all mean cruelty, and fome of whom thought that they were. Again, in the history of flavery, if it could be well worked out, lie the means of confidering questions of the first import touching colonization, agriculture, focial order, and government. The remarkable people connected with the history of slavery are alone fufficient to give it fome interest. These are the royal family of Portugal throughout the 15th century, with Prince Henry at their head; then there are Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus, and the whole band of brave captains before and after him; there are Charles the 5th, Ximenes, Las Cafas, Vieyra, and hofts of churchmen and statesmen from those times down to the present. Lastly, there is the fate of one continent, perhaps we may fay, of two, deeply concerned in the history of slavery. The importance of the records in this matter is not to be measured by the fhow they make, which is often poor enough. There is many a small skirmish in the history of slavery which led |