In  1849  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  traffic  had  much  increased .sx   The  method  of  estimating  the  arrivals  was  to  note  down  all  actually  known  , and  to  add  one-third  for  those  not  known  , and  this  gave  a  total  of  8700 .sx   It  was  impossible  that  so  large  a  number  of  slaves  could  have  been  imported  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Captain-General  ;  and  Kennedy  , despite  his  good  opinion  of  Count  Alcoy  , conjectured  that  he  had  been  forced  to  tolerate  the  ventures  of  the  slave-trading  Queen  Mother  and  her  agent  , Parejo .sx   The  number  fell  off  in  1850  ;  but  the  demand  soon  revived  , and  in  1853  the  imports  had  risen  to  12,500  , the  highest  number  recorded  for  eleven  years .sx   The  natural  indignation  of  the  British  Government  , and  the  Report  of  the  Commons'  Committee  of  this  year  , in  which  it  was  said  that  "  history  does  not  record  a  more  decided  breach  of  national  honour  "  than  had  been  established  against  Spain  , created  considerable  alarm  at  Madrid  ;  and  orders  were  sent  out  which  , if  they  had  been  consistently  enforced  , must  have  annihilated  the  trade .sx   
Caedo  was  anything  but  a  satisfactory  governor  , but  it  fell  to  him  to  inaugurate  this  policy  , and  he  did  so  by  following  up  bozals  or  newly  imported  negroes  and  capturing  them  on  the  estates  , a  practice  which  was  declared  , with  some  show  of  reason  , to  be  contrary  to  a  law  passed  against  the  trade  in  1845 .sx   It  was  not  , however  , till  Pezuela  came  out  at  the  end  of  1853  that  the  new  system  was  fully  launched .sx   He  began  by  issuing  a  warning  to  all  district  governors  that  they  would  be  punished  for  connivance  , and  on  May  3  , 1854  , "  to  the  great  consternation  of  the  slave-traders  , " he  published  a  decree  requiring  all  the  plantation  slaves  to  be  registered  , empowering  magistrates  to  enter  suspected  estates  within  a  month  after  negroes  had  been  landed  , to  muster  the  slaves  , and  to  declare  free  all  who  had   .sx
not  been  legally  enrolled .sx   Pezuela  set  to  work  with  great  vigour  , capturing  and  liberating  over  3000  negroes  and  dismissing  officials  ;  and  his  recall  in  September  was  a  great  misfortune  , for  Concha  , despite  his  high  reputation  , was  either  unwilling  or  not  permitted  to  follow  the  same  plan .sx   In  conversation  with  the  British  Consul-General  , Crawford  , he  said  that  registration  must  be  ineffectual  , and  would  always  be  evaded  , so  long  as  it  was  confined  to  the  predial  slaves .sx   This  was  true  ;  but  a  much  greater  evil  was  that  only  a  portion  even  of  the  predial  slaves  was  registered  , the  total  number  of  cedulas  legally  issued  being  no  more  than  374,000  , so  that  there  was  always  a  pretext  for  the  multiplication  of  these  documents  ;  and  the  slave-traders  either  had  them  fabricated  or  obtained  them  less  cheaply  by  bribing  officials .sx   In  1853-54  there  was  an  outbreak  of  cholera  which  proved  fatal  to  some  16,000  slaves .sx   It  was  just  at  this  period  that  the  British  squadron  on  the  coast  of  Africa  was  greatly  'reduced  owing  to  the  demands  of  the  Crimean  War  ;  and  Concha  tried  to  stem  the  inevitable  flood  of  imports  , not  by  completing  registration  , but  by  requiring  all  owners  of  slaves  to  provide  them  with  passes  , which  were  to  be  issued  by  the  local  authorities  every  six  months  , and  also  by  offering  a  premium  of  25  dollars  for  every  bozal  rescued  from  slavery  , one-third  to  go  to  the  informer  and  two-thirds  to  the  captors .sx   
The  slave-traders  , who  were  adepts  at  corruption  , must  have  smiled  at  the  latter  measure  , which  had  been  suggested  in  all  innocence  by  the  British  Government  ;  and  they  no  doubt  manipulated  the  pass  system  in  the  same  manner  as  that  in  which  they  certainly  perverted  registration .sx   It  was  soon  discovered  that  thousands  of  slaves  had  been  registered  who  were  not  to  be  found  on  the  estates .sx   These  were  negroes  who  had  been  ordered  , so  to  speak  , from  Africa  , and  , where  an  official  could  not  be  trusted  to  wink  at  this  fraud  , slaves  had  been  borrowed  for  the  occasion  to  take  their  place .sx   
If  a  certificate  of  baptism  was  wanted  to  complete  the  credentials  , this  was  easily  obtained  by  bribing  a  priest .sx   The  expected  cargo  being  thus  secured  in  advance  , all  that  remained  was  to  run  it  ashore  ;  and  the  coast  officials  were  of  course  no  more  impeccable  , though  more  liable  to  suspicion  , than  their  colleagues  in  the  interior .sx   When  a  slave-ship  was  seen  or  known  to  be  approaching  , she  was  usually  met  at  sea  by  a  small  steamer  or  steam-launch  , which  went  out  well  provided  with  documents  for  the  "  protection  , " as  it  was  called  , of  the  negroes  , and  with  instructions  where  they  were  to  be  disembarked  , which  was  generally  inside  one  of  the  numerous  reefs  , out  of  reach  and  even  sight  of  a  British  cruiser  ;  or  , if  the  slave-ship  could  not  come  so  far  in-shore  , the  negroes  were  taken  off  and  landed  by  the  steamer .sx   
Another  difficulty  was  that  the  majority  of  slave-ships  no  longer  sailed  from  Cuba  , so  that  none  but  the  initiated  knew  what  vessels  were  expected  and  when  they  were  likely  to  arrive .sx   Brougham  said  in  1853  that  he  hoped  there  was  no  ground  for  statements  , which  one  heard  everywhere  , that  most  of  the  slavers  were  now  fitted  out  in  ports  of  the  United  States  with  American  capital  , manned  by  American  seamen  and  commanded  by  American  captains  ;  and  these  statements  were  only  too  true .sx   The  co-ordination  essential  to  this  business  might  have  been  difficult  to  effect  but  for  certain  Portuguese  contractors  , doubtless  some  of  those  who  had  been  expelled  from  Brazil .sx   These  men  were  expert  slave-traders .sx   They  came  to  Cuba  , arranged  with  the  planters  to  send  them  so  many  negroes  , and  then  went  to  the  United  States  , where  vessels  suitable  for  their  purpose  could  be  purchased  and  equipped  more  cheaply  and  with  far  less  risk .sx   It  was  reported  in  October  1856  that  a  certain  Da  Cunha  had  been  occupied  at  New  York  and  elsewhere  for  the  last  six  months  in  despatching  slavers  , that  his  correspondents  in  Cuba  had  provided  themselves   .sx
with  cedulas  and  pass-tickets  for  use  on  the  arrival  of  these  ventures  , and  that  many  others  in  America  were  no  doubt  similarly  engaged .sx   
In  Cuba  itself  the  men  who  had  made  fortunes  in  the  trade  when  it  was  almost  a  recognised  branch  of  commerce  had  long  since  retired  , and  their  places  had  been  taken  by  mere  speculators  , prepared  to  run  all  risks  and  frequently  becoming  bankrupt .sx   Nor  was  it  easy  to  obtain  crews  , for  even  wages  at  the  rate  of  forty  dollars  a  week  were  no  great  inducement  when  their  payment  depended  on  success .sx   One  of  the  seamen  told  Kennedy  that  he  had  made  eight  voyages  and  been  seven  times  captured  , another  that  he  had  been  captured  on  each  of  his  three  voyages  ;  and  they  all  spoke  with  respect  of  the  British  squadron  , recognising  its  efficiency  and  the  "  honourable  demeanour  "  of  the  officers .sx   
The  course  of  events  in  Cuba  could  not  fail  to  revive  the  maritime  controversy  between  the  British  and  American  Governments  ;  but  the  chronological  development  of  our  subject  requires  that  we  should  deal  first  with  another  dispute  , also  connected  with  the  slave  trade  , which  was  to  create  considerable  ill-feeling  between  this  country  and  France .sx   It  was  a  West  Indian  as  well  as  an  African  question  , and  had  originated  in  some  of  our  own  colonies  , where  emancipation  had  been  followed  by  a  shortage  of  labour    at  all  events  at  such  wages  as  the  planters  were  able  or  willing  to  offer .sx   
Various  efforts  had  been  made  to  supply  this  want .sx   Labour  had  been  introduced  from  India  , Malta  , Madeira  and  , as  we  have  seen  , from  Sierra  Leone  ;  but  negroes  were  the  most  coveted  ;  and  the  planters  were  anxious  to  attract  a  stream  of  emigration  from  Africa .sx   The  Government  did  not  object  to  this  in  so  far  as  it  proceeded  from   .sx
British  possessions  , where  precautions  could  be  taken  that  the  persons  described  as  emigrants  were  really  free  agents  , but  they  refused  to  sanction  any  application  to  independent  chiefs .sx   The  difficulties  of  the  planters  were  much  increased  by  the  equalisation  of  the  sugar  duties  in  1846 .sx   We  have  seen  that  Russell's  Ministry  tried  to  soften  the  blow  by  promising  to  assist  them  in  procuring  indentured  labour  ;  and  the  promise  was  fulfilled  in  1848  , when  a  loan  of  500,000  was  voted  in  addition  to  160,000  already  advanced  , and  Russell  said  that  the  suspicion  of  slavery  aroused  by  the  scheme  had  retarded  its  execution  longer  than  was  fair  to  the  West  Indian  proprietors .sx   
Earl  Grey  , whom  we  have  met  with  more  than  once  as  Lord  Howick  , was  then  at  the  Colonial  Office .sx   He  was  sufficiently  in  sympathy  with  the  planters  to  send  out  a  mission  to  see  how  far  their  demands  could  be  met  ;  and  the  report  made  to  him  was  that  the  only  people  likely  to  be  available  were  the  Kroomen  , who  inhabited  the  500  miles  of  coast  from  Cape  Palmas  to  Sierra  Leone  , and  amongst  whom  slavery  was  unknown .sx   Kroomen  were  to  be  found  as  seamen  on  all  British  vessels  , naval  or  mercantile  , on  the  west  coast  , and  a  few  of  them  had  accepted  employment  at  Fernando  Po  and  even  at  Ascension  ;  but  the  wages  now  offered  were  far  below  those  to  which  they  were  accustomed  , and  only  some  twenty  or  thirty  of  them  could  be  induced  to  embark  for  the  West  Indies .sx   With  all  its  care  , the  Colonial  Office  had  not  been  able  to  prevent  the  misapprehension  of  its  purpose  in  Africa .sx   One  enterprising  chief  made  war  on  a  neighbouring  village  in  order  to  supply  us  with  "  emigrants  "  ;  and  the  king  of  Calabar  replied  to  a  British  merchant  who  had  asked  whether  any  of  his  people  would  engage  themselves  as  free  labourers  , "  No  man  will  go  for  himself .sx   We  shall  buy  them  alsam  we  do  that  time  slave  trade  bin .sx   " 
Emigration  having  failed  , the  only  alternative  was  to  buy  slaves  for  the  purpose  of  converting  them  into  free  labourers .sx   This  plan  , backed  by  the  usual  plea  that  the  slave  trade  might  be  supplanted  but  could  not  be  suppressed  , was  advocated  in  a  memorial  from  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Kingston  , Jamaica  , in  1848 .sx   Lord  Grey  replied  that  the  Government  could  "  by  no  means  "  countenance  such  an  idea  , and  were  confident  that  it  would  not  have  been  adopted  by  the  memorialists  had  they  been  "  aware  of  the  consequences  which  might  be  expected  to  follow .sx   The  existence  of  interested  motives  for  producing  Africans  on  the  coast  has  always  been  a  provocation  to  war  and  outrage .sx   " But  the  scheme  had  its  supporters  here  as  well  as  in  the  colonies  , and  conspicuous  amongst  them  was  Joseph  Hume  , who  had  advocated  it  in  Parliament  in  1846  and  was  to  advocate  it  again  in  1850 .sx   Hutt  must  also  have  favoured  it  , for  in  1845  we  find  him  exhorting  the  Government  not  to  listen  to  "  mischievous  meddlers  , " but  to  "  throw  open  our  West  India  plantations  to  the  free  emigration  of  the  African  race .sx   " 
Such  was  the  state  of  this  question  when  it  was  raised  to  unexpected  importance  by  the  action  of  France .sx   Slavery  had  been  abolished  in  the  French  colonies  as  the  result  of  the  revolution  of  1848  , which  established  the  Second  Republic  and  , eventually  , the  Second  Empire  ;  but  France  in  regard  to  the  slave  trade  was  now  denuded  of  international  obligations  , except  of  course  that  she  had  signed  the  declaration  of  the  Powers  at  Vienna  in  1815 .sx   In  1831  she  had  concluded  , as  we  have  seen  , a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  for  mutual  search  , and  in  1845  had  replaced  that  agreement  by  another  in  which  she  undertook  to  maintain  a  squadron  of  her  own  on  the  coast  of  Africa .sx   The  new  treaty  , having  been  concludedfor  ten  years  , expired  in  1855  ;  but  long  before  this  the  squadron  had  been  reduced  from  twenty-six  vessels  to  twelve  ;  and  the  Paris  press  avowed    what  had  always  been  suspected  by  our  naval  officers    that  France  maintained  a  force  in  these  waters  only  "  to  protect  her  commerce  from  the  inquisition  and  annoyance  of  the  English  cruisers .sx   " 
Meanwhile  emancipation  had  been  attended  by  the  same  consequences  in  the  French  island  of  Reunion  as  it  had  produced  , fourteen  years  earlier  , in  the  neighbouring  British  island  of  Mauritius .sx