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Document : 248

Title: David Livingstone's Incomplete Manuscript of His Post-Script to the Preface of a 'Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and its Tributaries'

Author(s): Livingstone, David

Livingstone


P.S. to Preface


P.S. the credit which I was
fain to award to the Lisbon
statesmen for a sincere desire
to put an end to the slave trade
I regret to find to be totally
undeserved. They employed
a  wordy writer named Lacerda
to extinguish the facts adduced
by me before the meeting of the
“British association for
the advancement of science”,
at Bath, by a series of papers
in the  Portuguese Official
Journal — and their Minister
for Foreign Affairs, , has
since devoted some of the
scanty funds of his Govern-ment
to the translation and
circulation of Ms Lacerda's
profuse verbiage in the form
of an English tract. Nothing
is more conspicuous in





this official document than
the extreme ignorance displayed
of the geography of the country of
which they pretend not only
knowledge but dominion — A
vague rumour cited by some
old author about two marshes
below Murchison's cataracts, is
considered conclusive evidence
that the ancient inhabitants of
a village on the Zambesi found
no difficulty in navigating the
Shire up what modern people
find to be an ascent of 1200 feet
in 35 miles of latitude. A broad
shallow lake with a strong current
which Senhor Candido declared he
had visited N.W. of Tette is assumed
to be the narrow deep Lake Nyassa without current
and about N.E. of the same point —
and great offence is taken because
the discovery of the main sources
of the Nile was ascribed to Speke
and Grant instead of F. Lobo &
Ptolemy.


But the main object of the
Portuguese Government is not





geographical. It is to bolster up
that pretence to power which
has been the  only obstacle to
the establishment of lawful
commerce and friendly
relationship with the native
inhabitants of Eastern Africa.
 The following
work contains abundant
confirmation of all that was
advanced at Bath, and we
may here add that it is the
false assumption of power
over 1360 miles of coast —
from English River to Cape
Delgado — where the Portuguese
have in fact no authority,
which perperpetuates the barbarism
of the inhabitants. Interdicting
all foreign commerce except
at a very few points where
they have established custom
houses — and where by an enormous
and obstructive tariff, and
differential duties they completely





shut out the natives from any
trade except that in slaves.


Looking from South to North
let us glance at the enormous
seaboard which the Portuguese in
Europe falsely assert to belong to them,
Delagoa Bay has a small fort
called Lorenzo Marques but nothing
beyond the walls. They have a
small  strip of land by sufferance
of the natives at Inhambane.
Sofala is in ruins, and then from
Quillimane Northwards for 690
miles, they have only one small
stockade protected by an armed
launch in the mouth of the
river Angox[a] and that is
intended to stop foreign vessels
from trading there in any thing
but slaves. Then at Mosambique
they have  the little island on which
the fort stands, and a strip on
the main land three miles long on
which they have a few farms,
and are only secure from hostility
by paying the natives an annual




tribute which they call “having
the blacks in their pay”. They
have also small slaving establish
ments at Iboe & Pomba — at the
latter place they tried to form
a settlement but failed. They
pay tribute also to the zulus for the lands
they cultivate on the right bank
of the Zambese — and the general
effect of the pretence to power
and obstruction to  commerce  is to drive
the independent native chiefs
to the slave trade as the only one
open to them.


It is well known to the
English Government  from reliable
documents at the Admiralty
and Foreign Office that no
longer ago than November
1864 two months after the Bath
speech was delivered — when
the punishment of the perpetrators
of an outrage on the crew of
the cutter of H M. S. Lyra at Antonio River 45 miles S.W. of Mosambique was
demanded by H. M. S Wasp at Mosambique
the present Governor General





declared that he had no power
over the natives there. They have
never been subdued and being a
fine energetic race would readily
enter into commercial treaties
with foreigners were it not for
the false assertion of power
by which the Portuguese with the
acquiescence of European
governments shut them out
from commerce and every
civilizing influence.


This Portuguese pretence to
dominion is the greatest curse
to the negro race on the East
Coast of Africa and it
would soon fall to the ground
were it not for the moral
support it derives from our
own flag. The Emperor
Napoleon III disregarded it in
the case of the “Charles et Georges” —
while it was only by the aid
of English sailors that the