The ivory issue worries me more and more. I am not forgetting any of the considerations that Your Majesty has deigned to point out to me, but commerc… - Auguste, Baron Lambermont

There is no such thing as exclusively national thinking. The work intended to benefit science and humanity necessarily interests everyone, but Belgium and its Sovereign will indirectly derive honor and great moral benefit from it; in this sense, there is a truly and usefully Belgian thought. We do not have a view of colonial acquisition, but over time trade will undoubtedly find its value there as well.

At the moment, neither the Spanish, the Portuguese, nor the Dutch are willing to sell. I intend to discreetly inform myself if in Africa if there is nothing to do.

The slave trade has another character; it is the very denial of every law, of all social order. Man-hunting constitutes a crime of high treason against humanity. It ought to be repressed wherever it can be reached, on land as well as by sea.