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ON THE SLAVE-TRADE,

To the EDITOR of the BRITISH PRESS.

April 8, 1805.

SIR, THE advocates for the continuance of the African SlaveTrade, in the dearth of found argument for the support of their cause, have frequently had the effrontery to make their appeal to the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures undoubtedly record the existence of Slavery in ancient times; but furely it would be a very unfair inference from this admiffion, that the Scriptures, therefore, fanction that traffick in men which is carried-on by British fubjects from the Coaft of Africa, for the fupply of labourers in the Weft-Indian Islands. If fuch a principle of interpretation were admitted, to what abfurd confequences would it not lead! The Scriptures record the fratricide of Cain, the drunkenness of Noah, and the polygamy of David; but would it be just reasoning to infer, that either murder, or fenfuality and profligacy, were fanctioned by the word of God? As juft, at least, as that deduced by the modern Man-Merchant from the fale of Jofeph to the Midianites, or from the existence of bondage in the Patriarchal ages, in favour of his horrid traffick.

But let it be granted, for the fake of argument, that the Slavery mentioned in Scripture was fanctioned by Divine authority. Will this conceffion affect the question at issue, or establish the lawfulness of the African Slave-Trade ? By no means. But, before I enter upon the difcuffion of this fubject, it will be proper to premife, that the cause for which I plead has fuffered materially from the ambiguity of the

term

term Slavery. This vague and undefined term is applied to conditions of Society differing very widely in almost every effential particular. We fpeak of our becoming Naves, if a Minifter do but fufpend the Habeas Corpus A&t. The French are called Slaves, because they do not enjoy the fame degree of political liberty with which Providence has bleffed this Island. The domeftick fervitude of Africa (which probably bears a close refemblance to Patriarchal bondage) is termed Slavery, and the subjects of it slaves. Some other name, therefore, ought to be invented to express West-Indian bondage; for, by means of the affociation of Ideas which is produced by this intercommunity of appellation, especially in the minds of perfons who have had no opportunity of fully inveftigating the fubject, the African Slave-trade, together with that fyftem which it feeds and perpetuates in the Weft-Indies, is confounded with ftates of fervitude fo very mitigated as to excite no horror; and is thus relieved from a' great part of its fhade.

The fyftem of Slavery which prevails in our WeftIndian colonies we believe to ftand alone in the history of the world. It is not only (as Mr. Pitt affirmed in 1792) the greatest practical evil which has ever afflicted the human race; but it is an evil sui generis, fo radically and effentially different from every other which happens to have the fame name attached to it, as fcarcely to form a fair ground of analogical reafoning. But let us confider this point more attentively.

The miferies entailed on Africa by the Slave-Trade are already fufficiently known to the Publick; I need not, therefore, dwell at present on that part of the fubject. Let us follow the Slaves in the middle paffage. There, if we may credit the Man-Merchant, the utmoft exertions of his hu manity and beneficence are employed to promote the cafe and comfort of his African paffengers. But even there we

fhall

fhall be conftrained to confefs that his tender mercies are cruel.

In the year 1791 (three years after the paffing of the Slave-carrying A&t,which is admitted by the Man-Merchants themselves to have very greatly leffened the mortality on board of flave-ships), of 15,754 flaves carried from the coast of Africa, 1,378 died during the middle paffage, the average length of which was fifty-one days; making a mortality of 8 per cent. in that time, or of 62 per cent. per annum : a rate of mortality which would unpeople the Earth in a year and seven months.

The amount of the mortality in 1792 was, however, ftill more enormous. Of 31,554 flaves carried from Africa, no fewer than 5,413 died on the paffage, making somewhat more than 17 per cent. in fifty-one days. Had the voyage been prolonged, and the flaves continued to die in the fame proportion, the whole number would have been completely fwept-away in about ten months*.

I would now afk, whether it be fair, whether it be allowable, to dignify a practice fo pregnant with mifery and murder, with the name of commerce? Surely this cannot long be endured by a British Parliament. If it is to be tolerated, let us at least have some fpecious pretext for the indulgence: let there be, at least, one practice pointed-out, either in ancient or modern ftory, which will bear to be compared for one moment with this abominable traffick: otherwise we ought no longer to be impofed-upon by the hardy affumption of its antiquity and universality.

But the horrors of the middle paffage are at length terminated. The flaves are landed in the Weft-Indies; exposed like cattle in a Fair; spanned and gauged with as little ceremony as is obferved by a carcafe-butcher in Smithfield; and, having been purchased by some planter,

See accounts laid on the table of the House of Lords, in 1799.

are

are led to his eftate. What is, then, the fituation of fuch of them as furvive the feafoning? They are the abfolute property of their purchaser, vendible by him precifely in the fame manner as the horse which turns his fugar-mill, and, if direct privation of life and limb be excepted, equally fubject to his difcretion as to the quantity of labour to be exacted, the proportion of food to be allowed, and the dif cipline or punishment to be inflicted.

During the hours of labour, they are driven, like a team of oxen or horses, by the cart-whip; and this compulsion of labour, by the phyfical impulse, or present terror of the whip, is univerfal with respect to fuch flaves as are engaged in cultivating our islands. As to civil rights, or any political existence, they stand on a level with the brute. Immoderate cruelty to a flave is punishable as a nuisance, in the fame way as immoderate cruelty to cattle; but then, it is always difficult, and generally impoffible, to obtain proof of the fact; for (let it not be forgotten) the evidence of a flave, or of a thousand slaves, did they all testify the fame thing, would not be available in the fmalleft degree to the conviction of one who is free. This, then, is the state of bondage to which not only the imported Africans themfelves, but their children, and their children's children, for ever and for ever, are inevitably configned: and I defy any one to fhew, not only that a fingle circumftance in this picture is exaggerated, but that it is not a matter of as univerfal notoriety in the Weft Indies, whatever it may be in Europe, as the existence of flavery at all. I do not mean, indeed, to affirm, that this fyftem is not as humanely adminiftered by fome Weft-Indian planters, as its nature will admit. But ftill fuch is the fyftem which they have to adminifter.

Let it be remarked, however, that there is one circuntftance in the lot of Weft-Indian Slaves which renders it

even

even worse than that of brates; they not only feel the prefent pain, but they can remember the past, they can anticipate the future, they can difcourfe, they can contrive, they can execute, they can diftinguish between right and wrong; they have had the infolence, at times, to exercise this faculty; nay, they have even dared to prefer a claim to the poffeffion of humanity, by expreffing a sense of injury and injuftice, and by fhewing that they can refent it. Hence it is, that, while in this country, we fee men take pleasure in raifing their horfes and dogs to a participation of their own enjoyments, and to a place, as it were, in their friendship and fociety; the flave in the Weft-Indies is degraded and thruft-down to the very earth, left, looking upwards, fome untoward accident fhould difcover to him that he is a man, poffeffed of the fame common nature with his master, and equally entitled with him to feel, and to repel infult, and injury, and torture.

Now, I do not hesitate to challenge all the advocates of the Slave-Trade to point-out, in ancient times, any ftate or condition of life, which bears the most remote refemblance to the Weft-Indian fyftem; viewed in all its parts, from its commencement in Africa, to its completion in the Weft-Indies. Nay, fo far is it from having any claim to antiquity, that I take it upon myself to aver that this fyftem, as now conftituted, is entirely a modern invention. It took its rife in the Antilles, about 220 years ago; and from that time it has been gradually augmenting, until by the accumulating wafte of the British capital and African blood, it has acquired its present hideous form and gigantick dimenfions.

Still, however, it may be pertinacioufly argued that slavery is flavery, and that no doubt can be entertained of the existence of fuch a ftate of fociety among the Ifraelites. The bondage, however, which prevailed among the Ifrael

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