falifornia 
 
 ?ional 
 
 bility
 
 LIBRARY OF 
 
 B. W. ARNET 
 
 w,Njt> 
 
 \V ILBERKORCK. (") H 
 1893.
 
 VIEWS 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERICAN SLAYERY, 
 
 TAKEN 
 
 A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 Jolju 
 
 "WHATSOEVER YE WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD DO TO YOU, DO YE IVEN so 
 
 TO THEM ; FOR THIS 13 THE LAW." MATT. vii. 12. 
 
 "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO SUPPOSE THESE CREATURES TO BE MEN, 
 BECAUSE, ALLOWING THEM TO BE MEN, A SUSPICION WOULD FOLLOW THAT WE 
 OURSELVES ARE NOT CHRISTIANS." 
 
 MONTESQUIEU: Spirit of Laws, book xv. chap. 5. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 ASSOCIATION OP FRIENDS FOR THE DIFFUSION OF RELIGIOUS 
 
 AND USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
 No. 109 NORTH TENTH STREET. 
 
 1858.
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE object of the following compilation is to 
 present to the American reader the opinions of 
 some of the truly great and good men of the 
 eighteenth century on the subject of Negro 
 Slavery. 
 
 The attention of the public has been so long 
 absorbed by the consideration of its economical 
 and political bearings, that there is great danger 
 lest its moral and religious aspect may be entirely 
 lost sight of. 
 
 An investigation of the whole subject, upon 
 these grounds, becomes, at the present time, a 
 most especial and important duty, when this 
 great question of Slavery seems not only to 
 agitate our public councils, and almost to en- 
 danger our national existence; but to per- 
 i* 5 
 
 2201135
 
 6 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 meate even the local politics of every section of 
 the Union. 
 
 Moreover, it is brought seriously to the at- 
 tention of every citizen of the United States by 
 the obligations of our national law, which en- 
 forces, under heavy penalties, his individual co- 
 operation with the slave-holder in the assertion 
 of a claim to ownership in a human being ; as well 
 as by the alleged decisions of our highest judicial 
 tribunal that slavery is under constitutional pro- 
 tection in all the common territories of the 
 Union. 
 
 In this view of the case, it has been thought 
 that great advantage might arise from an en- 
 deavour, at this time of excitement, calmly to 
 recur to first principles with reference to so 
 important a subject, to trace the title of Ameri- 
 can Slavery back to its origin ; and to ascertain 
 something of the religious opinion of the last 
 century upon the merits of the question. 
 
 In the course of this investigation many 
 tracts and pamphlets contained in our libra- 
 ries were carefully examined ; and two essays 
 have been selected as comprising the substance 
 of the whole. They present in earnest and
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 simple language the purest religious sentiment 
 of that age, and, as such, are commended to the 
 Christian community of our own. 
 
 It will be found, perhaps, that the professing 
 church of the nineteenth century has retro- 
 graded somewhat from the uncompromising zeal 
 and vigilance which characterized it in the eigh- 
 teenth ; and that it may be shrinking at this 
 time from bearing before the world that testi- 
 mony which it then fearlessly avowed against 
 the whole system of American Slavery.
 
 EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM THE WRITINGS OP 
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET 
 
 ON THE SUBJECT OP THE 
 
 AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE 
 
 AMEKICAN SLAYEEY. 
 
 PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY IN PHILADELPHIA, 
 FROM 1750 TO 1774.
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 IN the year 1785, the Vice-Chancellor of the 
 University of Cambridge gave out two subjects for 
 the Latin dissertations, one to the Middle Bachelors, 
 the other to the Senior Bachelors of Arts. The 
 latter ran simply thus : 
 
 "Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare." 
 
 Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will ? 
 
 The successful competitor for the first honors of 
 the University that year, Thomas Clarkson, had also 
 distinguished himself by gaining a prize for the best 
 Latin dissertation in 1784, and he therefore was 
 expected to compete for the same dignity on this 
 occasion. 
 
 Clarkson, however, was so entirely unprepared for 
 the Vice-Chancellor's theme, that we are informed 
 by his biographers, he hesitated to venture his 
 reputation on the attempt, and nothing but the
 
 12 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 greater risk of losing it by a withdrawal induced 
 him to enter the lists. With no other motive than 
 to obtain a higher scholastic fame, this great cham- 
 pion of the African race entered on his first in- 
 vestigations into the history of their sufferings and 
 their wrongs. 
 
 Little attention, however, had been drawn to the 
 subject in England at that time, and he found him- 
 self at a great loss for substantial materials for his 
 work. "I was in this difficulty," says he, "when, 
 going by accident into a friend's house, I took up a 
 newspaper then lying on the table. One of the 
 articles which attracted my notice was an adver- 
 tisement of Anthony Benezet's, ' Historical Account 
 of Guinea/ &c. I soon left my friend and his paper, 
 and, to lose no time, hastened to London to buy it. 
 In this precious book I found almost all I wanted." 
 
 The result is well known to the world : the essay 
 was completed, the first prize won, and from that 
 day Clarksou dedicated his talents and his life to the 
 service of the oppressed African; with what suc- 
 cess, it is needless here to tell. 
 
 The author of this little volume, which may 
 almost be said to have thus laid the foundation for 
 the abolition of the slave-trade in England, and in 
 fact over the world, did not live to witness the fruits
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 13 
 
 of his labors, having died in Philadelphia in the 
 year 1784. 
 
 And while Clarkson's fame is cherished, not only 
 in his native land, but wherever humanity is re- 
 spected, the name of Anthony Benezet is now hardly 
 known beyond the limits of the city where the 
 greater part of his life was spent, and even here is 
 fast passing from our memories. 
 
 With a view of recalling it somewhat to the 
 readers of the extracts from his writings now pre- 
 sented, as well as to lend to them if possible some 
 additional interest, the following brief outline of his 
 life and labors is offered. A more extended bio- 
 graphy should, however, at an early day be prepared, 
 with such copious selections from his correspondence 
 and general writings, as shall present to the world a 
 more adequate tribute to the memory of this excel- 
 lent man.* 
 
 * In Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade 
 will be found a lively notice of Anthony Benezet's life and 
 labors. An interesting memoir of him was also published in 1817, 
 by the late Roberts Vaux. From these, together with such 
 other cotemporary materials as could be obtained, this sketch 
 is compiled. Some valuable allusions and anecdotes with re- 
 gard to him occur in the English biographies of the Countess 
 of Huntingdon, George Whitefield, and other distinguished cha- 
 -acters of that day, with whom Benezet corresponded. In our own
 
 14 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 Anthony Benezet was born at St. Quentin, in the 
 province of Picardy, France, in the year 1713. 
 His parents, although wealthy and respectable, were 
 associated with those Protestants contemptuously 
 termed Huguenots ;* and, in the persecutions which 
 followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were 
 driven from their native country and forced to take 
 refuge in Holland, which they reached through many 
 difficulties and dangers. 
 
 The family afterwards removing to London, An- 
 thony Benezet, on the completion of a good school- 
 education, was placed with an eminent mercantile firm 
 in that city, to acquire a knowledge of the business. 
 Not feeling satisfied, however, to enter on commer- 
 cial pursuits, he did not serve out his apprenticeship ; 
 
 country the great scarcity of such memoranda is attributed 
 to a deference, on the part of his friends, to his own unfeigned 
 humility, and his disapprobation of overrated eulogies of the 
 dead. He requested that they -would publish no posthumous 
 memorial of him ; though, added he, " If they will not regard 
 my desire, they may say Anthony Benezet was a poor creature, 
 and, through divine favor, was enabled to know it." 
 
 * History informs us that one of this family, Francois Bene- 
 zet, afterwards perished on the scaffold at Montpellier in France, 
 in 1755, upholding nobly to the multitude around him the 
 doctrines he had preached and then suffered for. Felice's 
 History of French Protestants.
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 15 
 
 but adopted from preference a mechanical employ- 
 ment, as more congenial to his retired and thoughtful 
 frame of mind. 
 
 He appears, at the early age of fourteen, to have 
 joined the Society of Friends, called Quakers; and 
 to have adopted from conviction their religious views 
 and testimonies. In his eighteenth year he removed 
 with the family to Philadelphia, where his brothers 
 embarked largely in a successful and lucrative busi- 
 ness, a share* of which was freely offered to him. 
 He adhered, however, to the decision deliberately 
 arrived at when in London, that the absorbing en- 
 gagements of a commercial career were incompatible 
 with that entire dedication of life to the cause of 
 religion and humanity to which he felt himself 
 called. Yet it was with some difficulty, after at- 
 tempting for a time manufacturing as well as 
 mechanical pursuits, without satisfaction to his mind, 
 that he finally settled on the profession of a teacher 
 as the calling most congenial to his own views of 
 duty, and most likely to be useful to his fellow-men. 
 In this choice, as well as in the persevering devotion 
 of his time and talents for more than forty years 
 to the duties he had chosen, Anthony Benezet ap- 
 pears, from all accounts, to have been actuated en- 
 tirely by the most disinterested and Christian motives.
 
 16 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 Endearing his scholars to him, by an affectionate 
 and fatherly manner and a conscientious interest in 
 their welfare, he yet carefully studied their dis- 
 positions and character, and sought to develop, by 
 gentle assiduity, the peculiar talents of each indi- 
 vidual pupil. "With some, persuasion was his only 
 incitement, others he stimulated to a laudable emu- 
 lation ; and even with the most obdurate he seldom, 
 if ever, appealed to any other corrective, than that 
 sense of shame, and fear of public disgrace, which he 
 greatly preferred to any corporal punishment. In all 
 these respects he was far in advance of his age in 
 the instruction of the young. Clarkson, who had 
 access to Benezet's extensive foreign correspondence, 
 expressly records of him, that on such great questions 
 as that of Slavery, he labored to imbue his pupils 
 with correct and thorough convictions of the right ; 
 believing that, by thus annually sending forth a con- 
 siderable number of well-trained youth, he was most 
 effectively influencing the future public sentiment. 
 
 Yet, while thus laboriously discharging his daily 
 avocations, in the course of which he compiled two in- 
 troductory works for the use of schools, much superior 
 to the elementary treatises then in vogue, and which 
 obtained considerable reputation abroad and at home, 
 Anthony Benezet appears to have been also distin-
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 17 
 
 guished in every benevolent public work and move- 
 ment of the day. 
 
 It is not intended at tbis time to follow bim in 
 these various labors, a recital of which would fill a 
 large volume. It may be enough to say that he 
 was truly a Christian philanthropist; most unosten- 
 tatiously laboring, by personal influence, by corre- 
 spondence, and by aid of the public press, for the 
 promotion of any cause of humanity he was engaged 
 in, or for the suppression of iniquity and wrong. 
 
 He published several tracts and pamphlets on the 
 evils of intemperance. 
 
 The subject of war, with all its attendant horrors, 
 was brought closely home to him by the trials of the 
 American Revolution. The sufferings of the soldiers, 
 and of the inhabitants on whom they were quartered, 
 formed the object of many a visit to the officers' 
 camp or to the public hospitals ; and the iniquity 
 of the whole system, especially its entire incon- 
 sistency with the Christian profession, impressed 
 him so deeply that he printed and circulated, in large 
 numbers, a treatise entitled " Thoughts on the Na- 
 ture of Warp^commending it by special letters to 
 persons or distinction in Europe and America, for 
 their perusal and reflection. 
 
 In 1778, during the excitement of the American
 
 '8 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 Revolution, lie issued a small work entitled " Serious 
 Reflections on the Times, addressed to the Well-Dis- 
 posed of every Religious Denomination." The spirit 
 of the whole book may be gathered from its closing 
 paragraph : 
 
 " Let us not, beloved brethren, forget our profes- 
 sion as Christians, nor the blessing promised by 
 Christ to the peace-makers; but let us all sincerely 
 address our common Father for ability to pray, not 
 for the destruction of our enemies, who are still our 
 brethren, the purchase of our blessed Redeemer's 
 blood, but for an agreement with them. Not in 
 order to indulge our passions in the .gains and de- 
 lights of this vain world, and forget we are called to 
 be as pilgrims and strangers in it, but that we may 
 be more composed, and better fitted for the kingdom 
 of Grod ; that, in the dispensations of His good plea- 
 sure, He may grant us such a peace, as may prove to 
 the consolation of the Church, as well as the nation, 
 and be on earth an image of the tranquillity of 
 heaven." 
 
 His sympathies were deeply enlisted for the abo- 
 riginal inhabitants of America, and he labored much, 
 for the general protection of the rights of this people, 
 as well as for the relief of particular instances of 
 suffering among them.
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 19 
 
 A pamphlet published shortly before his death, 
 entitled " Some Observations on the Situation, Dis- 
 position, and Character of the Indian Natives of 
 the Continent/ 7 was thought by his friends to be the 
 prelude to a more extended work on the same sub- 
 ject, had life permitted. 
 
 He had strong faith in the integrity of the Indian 
 character, and believed that, if treated with justice 
 and consideration, much, if not all, of the bloodshed 
 and cruelty of the wars with these tribes might be 
 averted. In 1763, when the British General Am- 
 herst was at New York, preparing for an Indian 
 campaign, Anthony Benezet addressed him an earnest 
 and able letter on their behalf, concluding with the 
 pathetic appeal, " And, further, may I entreat the 
 general, for our blessed Redeemer's sake, from the no- 
 bility and humanity of his heart, that he wouldcon^- 
 descend to use all moderate measures, if j 
 
 prevent that prodigious and cruel effusion of blood, 
 that deep anxiety and distress, that must fill the breasts 
 of so many helpless people should an Indian war be 
 once entered upon ?" 
 
 In the year 1755, the arrival in Philadelphia of 
 great numbers of the exiled Acadians afforded Bene- 
 zet a wide field for his benevolent labors. Driven 
 from their homes in Nova Scotia, in express viola-
 
 20 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 tion of treaty stipulations, by the cruelty of the 
 British commander, nearly seven thousand of these 
 unhappy neutrals were dispersed along the American 
 coast, from Massachusetts Bay to New Orleans, 
 friendless, and destitute of even the necessaries of 
 life. 
 
 Anthony Benezet, being enabled to converse with 
 the exiles in their own language, and feeling his sym- 
 pathies especially enlisted on their behalf, immediately 
 undertook the charge of providing asylums for the 
 aged and helpless, and employment for such as were 
 able to work. All his friends were laid under tribute 
 for the relief and support of his Acadian colony. 
 One gave, at his request, the necessary grounds, 
 others joined him in furnishing the funds to erect the 
 buildings required for their accommodation, and 
 Benezet himself purchased and disbursed, for a con- 
 siderable time, all the provisions and clothing they 
 needed. He visited carefully the sick and infirm 
 among them ; extended religious consolation to the 
 dying; and when all was over, performed the last 
 offices of respect to their remains. 
 
 A most interesting history could be written of his 
 labors, for years, on behalf of this poor people. 
 
 But, while his heart seemed thus open to every 
 variety of human suffering and woe, whether among
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 21 
 
 the exiles of his own race, or the aborigines of Ame- 
 rica, the principal share of his sympathies and chari- 
 ties, during a long life, was devoted to the service of 
 a still more oppressed and degraded people. 
 
 About the year 1750, long before the members of 
 his own Society had acted unitedly upon the subject, 
 Anthony Benezet began to arouse public attention to 
 the horrors of the African slave-trade and the enor- 
 mous evils of American slavery^ 
 
 Once enlisted in the cause of the oppressed negro, 
 it is impossible to conceive of a more untiring and 
 faithful devotion than he manifested, during the re- 
 mainder of his life, to this subject. Clarkson testi- 
 fies that Anthony Benezet was one of the most zealous 
 and vigilant advocates that the cause of human free- 
 dom ever possessed. 
 
 No means were left untried to attract public notice, 
 and form a correct public sentiment, with regard to 
 this important subject. The almanacs, then retain- 
 ing their hold on the popular mind which Dr. Frank- 
 lin had established, contained, year after year, notices 
 of some glaring instance of cruelty or wrong to the 
 negroes, from the pen of Benezet. 
 
 Innumerable tracts and pamphlets were written and 
 circulated by him, reproducing, with a variety and in- 
 genuity truly wonderful, the complicated evils of the
 
 22 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 whole system of slavery. "If a person called on 
 him/' says Clarkson, " who was going a journey, his 
 first thoughts usually were, how he could make 
 him an instrument in favor of this important cause. 
 He seemed to have been born and to have lived for 
 the promotion of it, and he never omitted the least 
 opportunity of serving it." 
 
 From these short tracts and notices in the press 
 of the day, Anthony Benezet proceeded to more ex- 
 tended and laborious publications. In 1762 ap- 
 peared the second edition of a work entitled " A 
 Short Account of that Part of Africa inhabited by 
 the Negroes, with general observations on the slave- 
 trade and slavery;" from which some extracts will be 
 given in this little volume. 
 
 In the year 1767 he published " A Caution and 
 Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies on the 
 Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the 
 British Dominions." 
 
 This little book, which forms the principal basis of 
 the compilation, now presented, of Benezet's writings 
 on this subject, produced long afterwards a great 
 sensation, both in England and America ; especially 
 in the Society of which he was a member. Clark- 
 son states that the Yearly Meeting of London recom- 
 mended all the Quarterly Meetings, in the year 1785,
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 23 
 
 to distribute this book, which was accordingly for- 
 warded to them for that purpose. "On receiving 
 it," says he, "they sent it among several public 
 bodies, the regular and dissenting clergy, justices of 
 the peace, and particularly among the great schools 
 of the kingdom, that the rising youth might acquire 
 a knowledge, and at the same time a detestation, of 
 this cruel traffic. The schools of Westminster, the 
 Charter-House, St. Paul's, Merchant Tailors', Eton, 
 Winchester, Harrow, and several of the acade- 
 mies, were visited by deputations of the Society, to 
 know if their masters would allow the scholars to 
 receive it." 
 
 Who can tell how much of that public opinion 
 was thus formed which, many years afterwards, re- 
 sponded to the efforts of Buxton and his friends, to 
 abolish entirely the whole system of slavery in the 
 British dominions ? 
 
 But the publication destined to be productive of 
 the most important results, was issued by Benezet in 
 1767, after years of patient research in collecting 
 authentic materials for his work. It was entitled 
 "An Historical Account of Guinea, in Situation, 
 Produce, and the General Disposition of its Inhabit- 
 ants ; with an Enquiry into the Rise and Progress
 
 24 ANTHONYBENEZET. 
 
 of the Slave-Trade, jts Nature and Calamitous 
 
 " This _bpok/' says Clarkson, feelingly, " became 
 instrumental beyond any other work ever before pub- 
 lished in disseminating a proper knowledge and de- 
 testation of this trade." The authorities quoted in 
 this volume are all of the most unquestionable cha- 
 racter; and no successful effort was ever made to 
 controvert them. 
 
 He was unwearied also in collecting statistics and 
 facts from the negroes themselves, with regard to their 
 sufferings; and would often be seen on the wharves 
 surrounded by a group of these poor people, whose 
 story afterwards served as a basis for an argument 
 or a touching appeal, in one of the almanacs or 
 papers of the day. 
 
 Anthony Benezet did not, however, confine his ex- 
 ertions to the publication of treatises on the subject. 
 He corresponded most extensively upon it, with in- 
 fluential individuals in Europe and America, and 
 also labored personally to awaken an interest for the 
 cause, in the community where he resided. 
 
 Believing that the elevation of the free people of 
 color was not only a duty owing to them directly, 
 but would prove one of the most efficient influences 
 in the general admission and restoration of the rights
 
 AN1HONY BENEZET. 25 
 
 of the whole race, he established an evening school 
 in Philadelphia for their instruction, which he taught 
 gratuitously, after the other labors of the day were 
 over. When afterwards the Society of Friends be- 
 came interested in this subject and it was proposed 
 to enlarge the benefaction, Anthony Benezet con- 
 tributed liberally himself, and was active in soliciting 
 funds from others for the erection of a building for 
 this purpose. 
 
 Finding that this school required more attention 
 than his enfeebled strength enabled him to devote to 
 it, while also in charge of the academy which for 
 nearly half a century he had successfully conducted, 
 he relinquished the emoluments of the latter, and 
 for the last two years of his life spent most of his 
 time at the colored school. Nor did his devotion to 
 it end with his life. By his last will he directed 
 that all his little fortune, after the death of his 
 widow, should, with the exception of a few small 
 legacies, be invested as a permanent fund for its 
 support. 
 
 He leaves the following remarkable testimony to the 
 intelligence and aptitude for learning of this generally- 
 despised race : " I can with truth and sincerity de- 
 clare that I have found amongst the negroes as great 
 variety of talents as among the like numbers of whites;
 
 26 ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 and I ain bold to assert that the notion, entertained by 
 some, that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, 
 is a vulgar prejudice, founded on the pride or igno- 
 rance of their lordly masters, who have kept their 
 slaves at such a distance as to be unable to form a 
 right judgment of them." 
 
 The labors of this excellent man were now fast 
 drawing towards a close; his constitution, for many 
 years quite feeble, at the age of seventy seemed to 
 break down entirely, and, in the spring of 1784, lie 
 sank into a rapid decline. 
 
 As it became known that Anthony Benezet was 
 critically ill, it is related that his friends and fellow- 
 citizens crowded round his dwelling, expressing their 
 ardent solicitude for his recovery and restoration to 
 usefulness in the world. And, when this was an- 
 nounced to be impossible, his biographer states that 
 " the desire of many persons to see him was such 
 as to induce an indulgence of their wish. They 
 seemed to want his dying benediction. They were 
 admitted, and the chamber in which he lay and the 
 passage that led to it, were filled with approaching 
 and retiring mourners." 
 
 He received their visits with kindness ; but the 
 few words that escaped his lips indicated the deepest 
 self-humiliation. " I am dying," said he to those
 
 ANTHONY BENEZET. 27 
 
 about him, at one time, " and feel ashamed to meet 
 the face of my Maker, I have done so little in His 
 cause." 
 
 A vast concourse of people, numbering several 
 thousands of the citizens of Philadelphia, of every 
 rank and condition in life, attended the remains of 
 Anthony Benezet to their last resting-place. It was 
 said by many eye-witnesses of the scene to have been 
 the largest and most remarkable assemblage that had 
 ever gathered, on such an occasion, in Philadelphia. 
 The principal men of the city and State were there, 
 embracing various trades and professions; and among 
 them were several hundred negroes, who stood weeping 
 around his grave. They knew they had lost a 
 father and a friend; and, while they could not then 
 foresee the full fruits of his labors, or rightly esti- 
 mate his character, all classes acknowledged that a 
 great man had that day fallen among them.
 
 CAUTION AND WAKNING 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES 
 
 ON THE CALAMITOUS STATE OF 
 
 THE ENSLAVED NEGROES IN THE BRITISH 
 DOMINIONS. 
 
 AT a time when the general rights and liberties 
 of mankind, and the preservation of those valuable 
 privileges transmitted to us from our ancestors, are 
 become so much the subjects of universal considera- 
 tion, can it be an inquiry indifferent to any, how 
 many of those who distinguish themselves as the ad- 
 vocates of liberty remain insensible and inattentive 
 to the treatment of thousands and tens of thousands 
 of our fellow-men, who, from motives of avarice and 
 the inexorable decree of tyrant custom, are at this 
 very time kept in the most deplorable state of slavery 
 in many parts of the British dominions ? 
 
 The intent of publishing the following sheets is 
 more fully to make known the aggravated iniquity 
 attending the practice of the slave-trade, whereby 
 many thousands of our fellow-creatures, as free as 
 ourselves by nature, and equally with us the subjects 
 of Christ's redeeming grace, are yearly brought into 
 inextricable and barbarous bondage, and many, very 
 many, to miserable and untimely ends. 
 
 3* 29
 
 30 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 The truth of this lamentable complaint is so ob- 
 vious to persons of candor under whose notice it hath 
 fallen, that several have lately published their senti- 
 ments thereon as a matter which calls for the most 
 serious consideration of all who are concerned for the 
 civil or religious welfare of their country. How an 
 evil of so deep a dye hath so long not only passed 
 uninterrupted by those in power, but hath even had 
 their countenance, is indeed surprising, and charity 
 must suppose in a great measure to have arisen 
 from this, that many persons in government, both of 
 the clergy and laity, in whose power it hath been 
 to put a stop to the trade, have been unacquainted 
 with the corrupt motives which give life to it, and 
 the dying groans, which daily ascend to God, 
 the common Father of mankind, from the broken 
 hearts of those his deeply-oppressed creatures ; other- 
 wise the powers of the earth would not, I think I 
 may venture to say, could not, have so long authorized 
 a practice so inconsistent with every idea of liberty 
 and justice, which, as the learned James Foster says, 
 bids that God, which is the God and Father of the 
 Gentiles unconverted to Christianity, most daring and 
 bold defiance, and spurns at all the principles both 
 of natural and revealed religion. 
 
 Much might justly be said of the temporal fivjj^ 
 which attend this practice, as it is destructive of the 
 
 (welfare of human society, and of the peace and 
 prosperity of every country, in proportion as it pre- 
 vails. It might be also shown that it destroys the
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 31 
 
 bonds of natural affection and interest whereby man- 
 kind in general are united ; that it introduces idle- 
 ness, discourages marriages, corrupts the youth, ruins 
 and debauches morals, excites continual apprehensions 
 of dangers and frequent alarms, to which the whites 
 are necessarily exposed from so great an increase of 
 a people that, by their bondage and oppression, be- 
 come natural enemies, yet at the same time are 
 filling the places and eating the bread of those who 
 would be the support and security of the country. 
 But, as these and many more reflections of the 
 same kind may occur to a considerate mind, I shall 
 only endeavor to show, from the nature of the trade, 
 the plenty which Guinea affo: 
 barbarous treatment of the negroes, 
 tions made thereon by authors of note, that it is in 
 consistent with the plainest precepts of the gospel, 
 the dictates of reason, and every common sentiment 
 of humanity. 
 
 In an Account of Part of North America, pub- 
 lished by Thomas Jeffery, printed 1761, speaking of 
 the usage the negroes received in the West India 
 Islands, he thus expresses himself : " It is impossible 
 for a human heart to reflect upon the servitude of 
 these dregs of mankind without in some measure feel- 
 ing for their misery, which ends but with their lives. 
 
 . . . Nothing can be more wretched than the con- 
 dition of this people. One would imagine they were 
 framed to be the disgrace of the human species 
 banished from their country, and deprived of that 
 
 ;he nature of the trade, / 
 brds its inhabitants, the j . 
 egroes, and the observa- \/ 
 
 <-, nf -,-v^J-^ 4-1->^ i* in In '
 
 32 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 blessing liberty, on which all other nations set the 
 greatest value ; they are in a manner reduced to the 
 condition of beasts of burden : in general a few roots, 
 potatoes especially, are their food, and two rags, 
 which neither screen them from the heat of the day 
 nor the extraordinary coolness of the night, all their 
 covering ; their sleep very short ; their labor almost 
 continual; they receive no wages, but have twenty 
 lashes for the smallest fault." 
 
 The situation of the negroes in our Southern pro- 
 vinces on the continent is also feelingly set forth by 
 George Whitefield, in a letter from Georgia to the 
 inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South 
 Carolina, printed in the year 1739, of which the 
 following is an extract : " As I lately passed through 
 your provinces in my *way hither, I was sensibly 
 touched with a fellow-feeling of the miseries of the 
 poor negroes. Whether it be lawful for Christians 
 to buy slaves and thereby encourage the nations from 
 whom they are bought to be at perpetual war with 
 each other, I shall not take upon me to determine : 
 sure I am, it is sinful, when bought, to use them as bad, 
 nay, worse, than as though they were brutes; and, 
 whatever particular exceptions there may be, (as I 
 would charitably hope there are some,) I fear the 
 generality of you that own negroes are liable to such 
 a charge; for your slaves, I believe, work as hard, 
 if not harder, than the horses whereon you ride. 
 These, after they have done their work, are fed and 
 taken proper care of; but many negroes, when
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 33 
 
 wearied with labor in your plantations, have been 
 obliged to grind their own corn after they return 
 home. Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your 
 tables ; but your slaves, who are frequently styled dogs 
 or beasts, have not an equal privilege : they are scarce 
 permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from 
 their master's table; not to mention what numbers 
 have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel 
 taskmasters, who, by their unrelenting scourges, 
 have ploughed their backs, and made long furrows, 
 and at length brought them even to death. When, 
 passing alongi I have viewed your plantations cleared 
 and cultivated, many spacious houses built, and the 
 owners of them faring sumptuously every day, my 
 blood has frequently almost run cold within me to 
 consider how many of your slaves had neither con- 
 venient food to eat nor proper raiment to put on, not- 
 withstanding most of the comforts you enjoy were 
 solely owing to their indefatigable labors. The 
 Scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that 
 treadeth out the corn. Does God take care for oxen, 
 and will he not take care of the negroes also ? Un- 
 doubtedly he will. Go to now, ye rich men, weep 
 and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you : 
 behold, the provision of the poor negroes, who have 
 reaped down your fields, which is by you denied 
 them, crieth ; and the cries of them which reaped 
 are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 
 We have a remarkable instance of God's taking 
 cognizance of and avenging the quarrel of poor
 
 34 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 slaves, 2 Sam. xxi. 1. There was a famine in the 
 days of David, three years, year after year, and 
 David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, 
 It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew 
 the Gibeonites. Two things are here very remark- 
 able : First, these Gibeonites were only hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water, or, in other words, slaves 
 like yours. Secondly, that this plague was sent by 
 God many years after the injury, the cause of the 
 plague, was committed. And for what end were this 
 and such like examples recorded in Holy Scriptures ? 
 Without doubt, for our learning. For God is the 
 same to-day as he was yesterday, and will continue 
 the same forever. He does not reject the prayer of 
 the poor and destitute, nor disregard the cry of the 
 meanest negro. The blood of them spilt for these 
 many years in your respective provinces will ascend 
 up to heaven against you." 
 
 Some who have only seen negroes in an abject state 
 of slavery, broken-spirited and dejected, knowing 
 nothing of their situation in their native country, 
 may apprehend that they are naturally insensible of 
 the benefits of liberty, being destitute and miserable 
 in every respect, and that our suffering them to live 
 amongst us, (as the Gibeonites of old were permitted 
 to live with the Israelites,) though even on more 
 oppressive jterms, is to them a favor ; but these are 
 certainly erroneous opinions wim^respect to far the 
 greatest part of them, although it is highly probable 
 that in a country which is more than three thousand
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 35 
 
 miles in extent from north to south, and as much 
 from east to west, there will be barren parts, and 
 many inhabitants more uncivilized and barbarous 
 than others, as is the case in all other countries; 
 yet, from the most authentic accounts, the inhabit- 
 ants of Guinea appear, generally speaking, to be an 
 industrious, humane, sociable people, whose capaci- 
 ties are naturally as enlarged and as open to im- 
 provement as those of the Europeans, and that 
 their country is fruitful and in many places well im- 
 proved, abounding in cattle, grain, and fruits ; and, 
 as the earth yields all the year round a fresh supply 
 of food, and but little clothing is requisite, by 
 reason of the continual warmth of the climate, the 
 necessaries of life are much easier procured in most 
 parts of xVfrica than in our more northern climes. 
 This is confirmed by many authors of note who have 
 resided there. 
 
 William Smith, who was sent by the African Com- 
 pany to visit the settlements on the coast of Guinea, 
 in 1726, gives much the same account of the- country 
 of Delmina and Cape Corse, &c. for beauty and good- 
 ness, and adds, "The more you come downward toward 
 that part called Slave-Coast, the more delightful and 
 rich the soil appears." Speaking of their disposi- 
 tion, he says, " They were a civil, good-natured 
 people, industrious to the last degree. It is easy to 
 perceive what happy memories they are blessed with, 
 and how great progress they would make in the 
 sciences in case their genius was culthnted with
 
 36 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 study." He adds, from the information he received 
 of one of the factors who had resided ten years in 
 that country, " that the discerning natives account 
 it their greatest unhappiness that they were ever 
 visited by the Europeans; that the Christians intro- 
 duced the traffic of slaves, and that before our coming 
 they lived in peace." 
 
 From these accounts, both of the good disposition 
 of the natives and the fruitfulness of most parts of 
 Guinea, which are confirmed by many other authors, it 
 may well be concluded that their acquaintance with the 
 Europeans would have been a happiness to them had 
 those last not only bore the name, but been influenced 
 by the spirit, of Christianity. But, alas, how hath the 
 conduct of the whites contradicted the precepts and 
 example of Christ ! Instead of promoting the end of 
 his coming by preaching the gospel of peace and 
 good-will to man, they have, by their practices, con- 
 tributed to inflame every noxious passion of corrupt 
 nature in the negroes ; they have incited them to 
 make war one upon another, and for this purpose 
 have furnished them with prodigious quantities of 
 ammunition and arms, whereby they have been hurried 
 into confusion, bloodshed, and all the extremities of 
 temporal misery, which must necessarily beget in 
 their minds such a general detestation and scorn of 
 the Christian name as may deeply affect, if not 
 wholly preclude, their belief of the great truths of 
 our holy religion. Thus an insatiable desire of gain 
 hath become the principal and moving cause of the
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 37 
 
 roost abominable and dreadful scene that was per- 
 haps ever acted upon the face of the earth. Even 
 the power of their kings hath been made subservient 
 to answer this wicked purpose : instead of being pro- 
 tectors of their people, these rulers, allured by the 
 tempting bait laid before them by the European fac- 
 tors, &c., have invaded the liberties of their unhappy 
 subjects and are become their oppressors. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with the trade agree 
 that many negroes on the sea-coast, who have been 
 corrupted by their intercourse and converse with the 
 European factors, have learned to stick at no act of 
 cruelty for gain. These make it a practice to steal 
 abundance of little blacks of both sexes, when found 
 on the roads or in the fields, where their parents 
 keep them all day to watch the corn, &c. Some 
 authors say the negro factors go six or seven hun- 
 dred miles up the country with goods bought from 
 the Europeans, where markets of men are kept in 
 the same manner as those of beasts with us. When 
 the poor slaves, whether brought from far or near, 
 come to the sea-shore, they are stripped naked and 
 strictly examined by the European surgeons, both 
 men and women, without the least distinction or 
 modesty : those which are approved as good are 
 marked with a redhot iron with the ship's mark, 
 after which they are put on board the vessels, the 
 men being shackled with irons, two and two together. 
 Reader, bring the matter home, and consider whether 
 any situation in life can oe more compstely misera- 
 4
 
 38 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 ble than that of those distressed captives. When 
 we reflect that each individual of this number had 
 some tender attachment, which was broken by this 
 cruel separation ; some parent or wife, who had not 
 an opportunity of mingling tears in a parting em- 
 brace; perhaps some infant, or aged parent, whom 
 his labor was to feed and vigilance protect; them- 
 selves under the dreadful apprehension of an un- 
 known, perpetual slavery, pent up within the narrow 
 confines of a vessel, sometimes six or seven hundred 
 together, where they lie as close as possible. Under 
 these complicated distresses, they are often reduced 
 to a state of desperation, wherein many have leaped 
 into the sea and kept themselves under water till 
 they were drowned ; others have starved themselves 
 to death, for the prevention whereof some masters 
 of vessels have cut off the legs and arms of a num- 
 ber of those poor desperate creatures to terrify the 
 rest. Great numbers have also frequently been 
 killed, and some deliberately put to death under the 
 greatest torture, when they have attempted to rise, 
 in order to free themselves from their present misery 
 and the slavery designed them. 
 
 When the vessels arrive at their destined port in 
 the Colonies, the poor negroes are to be disposed of 
 to the planters ; and here they are again exposed, 
 naked, without any distinction of sex, to the brutal 
 examination of their purchasers ; and this, as it may 
 well be judged, is to many of them another occasion 
 of deep distress, especially to the females; add to
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 39 
 
 this, that near connections must now again be sepa- 
 rated, to go with their several purchasers.* In this 
 melancholy scene, mothers are seen hanging over 
 their daughters, bedewing their naked breasts with 
 tears, and daughters clinging to their parents, not 
 knowing what new stage of distress must follow their 
 separation, or if ever they shall meet again ; and 
 here, what sympathy, what commiseration, are they 
 to expect ? Why, indeed, if they will not separate 
 as readily as their owners think proper, the whipper 
 is called for and the lash" exercised upon their naked 
 bodies till obliged to part. 
 
 Can any human heart that retains a fellow-feeling 
 for the sufferings of mankind be unconcerned at re- 
 lations of such grievous affliction, to which this op- 
 pressed part of our species are subjected ? God-^-j 
 gave to man dominion over the fish of the sea, and I 
 over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, &c., I 
 but imposed no involuntary subjection of one man to ) 
 another. 
 
 The truth of this position has of late been clearly 
 set forth by persons of reputation and ability, particu- 
 larly George Wallis, in his System of the Laws of 
 Scotland, whose sentiments are so worthy the notice 
 of all considerate persons that I shall here repeat a 
 
 # Precisely the same scenes may be witnessed, in our day, 
 at the slave-auctions of the Southern States of the Union. 
 The system of internal slave-trade tolerated by our laws is 
 scarcely less revolting in its details than the evil we profess 
 to have abolished.
 
 40 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 part of what he has not long since published concern- 
 ing the African trade, viz. : 
 
 "If this trade admits of a moral or a rational 
 justification, every crime, even the most atrocious, 
 may be justified. Government was instituted for the 
 good of mankind. Kings, princes, governors, are 
 not proprietors of those who are subjected to their 
 authority: they have not a right to make them 
 miserable. On the contrary, their authority is vested 
 in them that they may, by the just exercise of it, 
 promote the happiness of their people. Of course 
 they have not a right to dispose of their liberty and 
 to sell them for slaves. Besides, no man has a right 
 to acquire or to purchase them ; men and their liberty 
 are not either salable or purchasable : one, therefore, 
 has nobody but himself to blame, in case he shall 
 find himself deprived of a man whom he thought he 
 had, by buying for a price, made his own ; for he 
 dealt in a trade which was illicit and was prohibited 
 by the most obvious dictates of humanity. For these 
 reasons, every one of those unfortunate men who are 
 pretended to be slaves has a right to be declared to 
 be free, for he never lost his liberty ; he could not 
 lose it ] his prince has no power to dispose of him ; 
 of course the sale was void. This right he carries 
 about with him, and is entitled everywhere to get 
 it declared. As soon, therefore, as he comes into a 
 country in which the judges are not forgetful of 
 their own humanity, it is their duty to remember 
 that he is a man and to declare him to be free.
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 41 
 
 This is the law of nature, which is obligatory on all 
 men at all times and in all places. Would not any of 
 us, who should be snatched by pirates from his native 
 land, think himself cruelly abused, and at all times 
 entitled to be free? Have not these unfortunate 
 Africans, who meet with the same cruel fate, the same 
 right ? Are not they men as well as we, and have 
 they not the same sensibility ? Let us not, there- 
 fore, defend or support a usage which is contrary to 
 all laws of humanity." 
 
 Francis Hutchinson also, in his System of Moral 
 Philosophy, speaking on the subject of slavery, says, 
 <( He who detains another by force in slavery is 
 always bound to prove his title. The slave sold or 
 carried away into a distant country must not be 
 obliged to prove a negative, that he never forfeited 
 his liberty. The violent possessor must in all cases 
 show his title, especially where the old proprietor is 
 well known. In this case each man is the original 
 proprietor of his own liberty. The proof of his losing 
 it must be incumbent on those who deprived him of 
 it by force. Strange (says the same author) that in 
 any nation where a sense of liberty prevails, where 
 the Christian religion is professed, custom and high 
 prospect of gain can so stupefy the consciences of 
 men, and all sense of natural justice, that they can 
 hear such computation made about the value of their 
 fellow-men and their liberty, without abhorrence and 
 indignation I" 
 
 The noted Baron Montps^n'g" gives it as his
 
 42 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 opinion, in his Spirit of Law, page 348, " That 
 nothing more assimilates a man to a beast than living 
 amongst freemen, himself a slave : such people as 
 these are the natural enemies of society, and their 
 number must always be dangerous." 
 
 The author of a pam^h|rt,lnt p ly jvnnfprl in Lon- 
 don, entitled An Essay in Vindication of the Conti- 
 nental Colonies of America, writes, " That the bond- 
 age we have imposed on the Africans is absolutely 
 repugnant to justice. That it is highly inconsistent 
 with civil policy. First, as it tends to suppress all 
 improvements in arts and sciences, without which it 
 is morally impossible that any nation should be happy 
 or powerful. Secondly, as it may deprave the minds 
 of the freemen, steeling their hearts against the 
 laudable feelings of virtue and humanity. And, 
 lastly, as it endangers the community by the de- 
 structive effects of civil commotions. Need I add to 
 these (says that author) what every heart which is 
 not callous to all tender feelings will readily suggest, 
 that it is shocking to humanity, violative of every 
 generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the Chris- 
 tian religion ? for, as Montesquieu very justly ob- 
 serves, ' We must suppose them not to be men, or a 
 suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Chris- 
 tians/ There cannot be a more dangerous maxim 
 than that necessity is a plea for injustice. For who 
 shall fix the degree of this necessity ? "What villain 
 so atrocious who may not urge this excuse, or, as 
 Milton has happily expressed it,
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 43 
 
 'And with necessity, 
 The tyrant's plea, excuse his devilish deed' ? 
 
 That our colonies want people is a very weak argu- 
 ment for so inhuman a violation of justice. Shall a 
 civilized, a Christian nation encourage slavery because 
 the barbarous, savage, lawless African hath done it ? 
 Monstrous thought! To what end do we profess 
 a religion whose dictates we so flagrantly violate ? 
 Wherefore have we that pattern of goodness and 
 humanity if we refuse to follow it ? How long shall 
 we continue a practice which policy rejects, justice 
 condemns, and piety dissuades ? Shall the Ame- 
 ricans persist in a conduct which cannot be justified, 
 or persevere in oppression from which their hearts 
 must recoil ? If the barbarous Africans shall con- 
 tinue to enslave each other, let the demon slavery 
 remain among them, that their crime may include 
 its own punishment. Let not Christians, by ad- 
 ministering to their wickedness, confess their re- 
 ligion to be a useless refinement, their profession 
 vain, and themselves as inhuman as the savages they 
 detest." 
 
 James^fesfeep, in his Discourses on Natural Re- 
 ligion and Social Virtue, also shows his just indigna- 
 tion at this wicked practice, which he declares to be a 
 criminal and outrageous violation of the natural right 
 of mankind. At page 156, vol. ii., he says, " Should 
 we have read, concerning the Greeks or Romans of 
 old, that they traded with a view to make slaves of 
 their own species, whom they certainly knew that
 
 44 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 this would involve in schemes of blood and murder, 
 of destroying or enslaving each other; that they even 
 fomented wars, and engaged whole nations and tribes 
 in open hostilities for their own private advantage ; 
 that they had no detestation of the violence and 
 cruelty, but only feared the ill success, of their in- 
 human enterprises ; that they carried men like them- 
 selves, their brethren, and the offspring of the same 
 common parent, to be sold like beasts of prey or 
 beasts of burden, and put them to the same re- 
 proachful trial of their soundness, strength, and 
 capacity for greater bodily service; that, quite for- 
 getting and renouncing the original dignity of human 
 nature, communicated to all, they treated them with 
 more severity and ruder discipline than even the ox 
 or the ass, who are void of understanding : should 
 we not, if this had been the case, have naturally been 
 led to despise all their pretended refinements of 
 morality, and to have concluded that, as they were 
 not nations destitute of politeness, they must have 
 been entire strangers to virtue and benevolence ? 
 
 " But, notwithstanding this, we ourselves (who pro- 
 fess to be Christians, and boast of the peculiar advan- 
 tages we enjoy by means of an express revelation of our 
 duty from Heaven) are, in effect, these very untaught 
 and rude heathen countries. With all our superior 
 light, we instil into those whom we call savage and 
 barbarous the most despicable opinion of human 
 nature. We, to the utmost of our power, weaken 
 and dissolve the universal tie that binds and unites
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 45 
 
 mankind. We practise what we should exclaim 
 against, as the utmost excess of cruelty and tyranny, 
 if nations of the world, differing in color and form 
 of government from ourselves, were so possessed of 
 empire as to be able to reduce us to a state of un- 
 merited and brutish servitude. Of consequence, we 
 sacrifice our reason, our humanity, our Christianity, 
 to an unnatural, sordid gain. We teach other nations 
 to despise and trample under foot all the obligations 
 of social virtue. We take the most effectual method 
 to prevent the propagation of the gospel, by repre- 
 senting it as a scheme of power and barbarous op- 
 pression, and an enemy to the natural privileges and 
 rights of men. 
 
 " Perhaps all that I have now offered may be of very 
 little weight to restrain this enormity, this aggravated 
 iniquity. However, I shall still have the satisfaction 
 of having entered my private protest against a prac- 
 tice which, in my opinion, bids that God, who is the 
 God and Father of the Gentiles unconverted to 
 Christianity, most daring and bold defiance, and 
 spurns at all the principles both of natural and re- 
 vealed religion." 
 
 How the British nation first came to be concerned 
 in a practice by which the rights and liberties of man- 
 kind are so violently infringed, and which is so oppo- 
 site to the apprehensions Englishmen have always 
 had of what natural justice requires, is indeed sur- 
 prising. It was about the year 1563, in the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, that the English first engaged
 
 46 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 in the Guinea trade j when it appears, from an ac- 
 count in Hill's Naval History, page 293, that when 
 Captain Hawkins returned from his first voyage to 
 Africa, that generous-spirited princess, attentive to 
 the interest of her subjects, sent for the commander, 
 to whom she expressed her concern lest any of the 
 African negroes should be carried off without their 
 free consent, declaring it would be detestable, and 
 call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the under- 
 takers. Captain Hawkins promised to comply with 
 the Queen's injunction : nevertheless, we find in the 
 account given in the same history of Hawkins's 
 second voyage, the author using these remarkable 
 words, Here began the horrid practice of forcing the 
 Africans into slavery. 
 
 Labat, a Roman missionary, in his account of the 
 Isles of America, at page 114 of vol. iv., mentions, 
 that Louis XII., father to the present French king's 
 grandfather, was extremely uneasy at a law by which 
 all the negroes of his colonies were to be made 
 slaves; but, it being strongly urged to him as the 
 readiest means for their conversion to Christianity, 
 he acquiesced therewith. 
 
 And, although we have not many accounts of the 
 impressions which this piratical invasion of the rights 
 of mankind gave to serious-minded people when first 
 engaged in, yet it did not escape the notice of some 
 who might be esteemed in a peculiar manner as watch- 
 men, in their day, to the different societies of Chris- 
 tians whereunto they belonged. Richard Baxter, an
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 47 
 
 eminent preacher amongst the non-conformists in 
 the last century, well known and particularly es- 
 teemed by most of the serious Presbyterians and In- 
 dependents, in his Christian Directory, mostly wrote 
 about a hundred years ago, fully shows his detesta- 
 tion of this practice in the following words : " Do 
 you not mark how God hath followed you with 
 plagues, and may not conscience tell you that it is 
 for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of men ? 
 To go as pirates and catch up poor negroes or people 
 of another land, that never forfeited life nor liberty, 
 and to make them slaves and sell them, is one of the 
 worst kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons 
 are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; 
 and they that buy them and use them as beasts for their 
 mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect 
 their souls, are fitter to be called devils than Chris- 
 tians. It is a heinous sin to buy them, unless it be 
 in charity to deliver them. Undoubtedly they are 
 presently bound to deliver them, because, by right, 
 the man is his own : therefore, no man else can have 
 a just title to him." 
 
 We also find George Fox, a man of exemplary 
 piety, who was the principal instrument in gathering 
 the religious society of people called Quakers, ex- 
 pressing his concern and fellow-feeling for the bond- 
 age of the negroes, in a discourse taken from his 
 mouth, in Barbadoes, in the year 1671. He says, 
 " Consider with yourselves if you were in the same 
 condition as the blacks are, who came strangers to
 
 48 CAUTION AND WARNING TO 
 
 you and were sold to you as slaves } I say, if this 
 should be the condition of you or yours, you would 
 think it hard measure, yea, and very great bondage 
 and cruelty. And therefore consider seriously of this, 
 and do you for and to them as you would willingly 
 have them or any other to do unto you were you in the 
 like slavish condition, and bring them to know the 
 Lord Christ. " 
 
 Do we indeed believe the truths declared in the 
 gospel ? Are we persuaded that the threatenings as 
 well as the promises therein contained will have their 
 accomplishment ? If indeed we do, must we not 
 tremble to think what a load of guilt lies upon our 
 nation generally and individually, so far as we in 
 any degree abet or countenance this aggravated 
 iniquity ? 
 
 I shall now conclude with an extract from an ad- 
 dress of a late author to the merchants and others 
 who are concerned in carrying on the Guinea trade, 
 which also in a great measure is applicable to 
 others, who, for the love of gain, are in any way 
 concerned in promoting or maintaining the captivity 
 _of the negroes : 
 
 " As the business you are publicly carrying on be- 
 fore the world has a bad aspect, and you are sensible 
 most men make objections against it, you ought to 
 justify it to the world upon principles of reason, 
 equity, and humanity, to make it appear that it is 
 no unjust invasion of the persons, or encroachments 
 on the rights of men, or forever to lay it aside. But
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 49 
 
 laying aside the resentment of men, which is but of 
 little or no moment in comparison with that of the 
 Almighty, think of a future reckoning; consider 
 how you shall come off in the great and awful day 
 of account : you now heap up riches, and live in 
 pleasure, but, oh, what will you do in the end 
 thereof? and that is not far off. "What if death 
 should seize upon you and hurry you out of this 
 world under all that load of blood-guiltiness that now 
 lies upon your souls ? The gospel expressly declares 
 that thieves and murderers shall not inherit the 
 kingdom of God. Consider that at the same time 
 and by the same means you now treasure up worldly 
 riches you are treasuring up to yourselves wrath 
 against the day of wrath, and vengeance that shall 
 come upon the workers of iniquity, unless prevented 
 by a timely repentance. 
 
 " And what greater iniquity, what crime that is 
 more heinous, that carries in it more complicated guilt, 
 can you name, than that in the habitual, deliberate 
 practice of which you now live ? How can you lift up 
 your guilty eyes to heaven ? How can you pray for 
 mercy to Him that made you, or hope for any favor 
 from Him that formed you, while you go on thus 
 grossly and openly to dishonor him in debasing and 
 destroying the noblest workmanship of his hands in 
 this lower world ? He is the Father of men ; and do 
 you think he will not resent such treatment of his 
 offspring whom he hath so loved as. to give his only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might 
 5
 
 50 CAUTION AND WARNING, ETC. 
 
 not perish, but have everlasting life ? This love of 
 God to man, revealed in the gospel, is a great aggra- 
 vation of your guilt ; for if God so loved us we ought 
 also to love one another. You remember the fate of 
 the servant who took hold of his fellow-servant, who 
 was in his debt, by the throat and cast him into prison : 
 think, then, and tremble to think, what will be your 
 fate, who take your fellow-servants by the throat, 
 that owe you not a penny, and make them prisoners 
 for life. 
 
 " Give yourselves leave to reflect impartially upon 
 and consider the nature of this man-trade, which if 
 you do, your hearts must needs relent, if you have 
 not lost all sense of humanity, all pity and compassion 
 towards those of your own kind, to think what calami- 
 ties, what havoc and destruction among them, you have 
 been the authors of, for filthy lucre's sake. God grant 
 you may be sensible of your guilt and repent in 
 time !"
 
 A SHORT ACCOUNT 
 
 F THAT PART OF 
 
 AFRICA INHABITED BY THE NEGROES, &c. 
 BY ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 IT is a truth, as sorrowful as obvious, that mankind 
 too generally are actuated by false motives, and sub- 
 stitute an imaginary interest in the room of that 
 which is real and permanent. And it must be ac- 
 knowledged, by every man who is sincerely desirous 
 of becoming acquainted with himself and impartially 
 inspects his own heart, that weakness and inbred 
 corruption attend human nature, which cannot be 
 restored to its original purity but through the efficacy 
 of the blood of Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour. So 
 that, notwithstanding the imagined moral rectitude 
 pleaded for, and the boasted pretences of the present 
 age to refined conceptions of things beyond our fore- 
 fathers, till this divine help is embraced, the heart 
 of man will remain corrupt, and its power of distin- 
 guishing between good and evil will still be obscured 
 by prejudice, passion, and interest. Covetousness and 
 pride have introduced many iniquitous practices into 
 civil society, which, though odious in themselves and 
 most pernicious in their consequences, yet, being 
 calculated to gratify our favorite passions, have been 
 adopted through custom and forced so strongly by ex- 
 ample as to become familiar to us, so that by degrees 
 
 51
 
 52 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 we silence the dictates of conscience and reconcile 
 ourselves to such things as would, when first proposed 
 to our unprejudiced minds, have struck us with 
 amazement and horror. 
 
 A lamentable and shocking instance of the in- 
 fluence which the love of gain has upon the minds 
 of those who yield to its allurements, even when con- 
 trary to the dictates of reason and the common feel- 
 ings of humanity, appears in the prosecution of the 
 negro-trade, in which the English nation has long 
 been deeply concerned and some in this province have 
 lately engaged, an evil of so deep a dye and at- 
 tended with such dreadful consequences, that no well- 
 disposed person, (anxious for the welfare of himself, 
 his country, or posterity,) who knows the tyranny, 
 oppression, and cruelty with which this iniquitous 
 trade is carried on, can be a silent and innocent 
 spectator. How many thousands of our harmless 
 fellow-creatures have, for a long course of years, 
 fallen a sacrifice to that selfish avarice which gives 
 life to this complicated wickedness ! The iniquity 
 of being engaged in a trade by which so great a num- 
 ber of innocent people are yearly destroyed in an 
 untimely and miserable manner, is greatly aggravated 
 from the consideration that we, as a people, have been 
 peculiarly favored with the light of the gospel, that 
 revelation of divine love which the angels introduced 
 to the world by a declaration of peace on earth and 
 good-will to men, of every nation, kindred, tongue, 
 and people. How miserable must be our condition
 
 OF AFRICA, ETC. 53 
 
 if, for filthy lucre, we should continue to act so con- 
 trary to the nature of this divine call, the purpose 
 of which is to introduce a universal and aifectionate 
 brotherhood in the whole human species, by removing, 
 from the heart of every individual who submits t.r> 
 its operation, the darkness and corruption of nature, 
 and transt'orming the semsh, wrathful, proud spirit 
 intcTmeekness, purity, and love : for this end the Son 
 of God became man, suffered, and died, and the whole 
 tenor of the gospel declares, that for those who re- 
 fuse or neglect the offers of this great salvation, the 
 Son of God has suffered in vain. 
 
 The end proposed by this essay is to lay before the 
 candid reader the depth of evil attending this ini- 
 quitous practice, in the prosecution of which, our 
 duty to God, the common Father of the family of 
 the whole earth, and our duty of love to our fellow- 
 creatures, is totally disregarded; all social connection 
 and tender ties of nature being broken, desolation 
 and bloodshed continually fomented in those unhappy 
 people's country. It is also intended to invalidate 
 the false arguments which are frequently advanced 
 for the palliation of this trade, in hopes it may be 
 some inducement to those who are not defiled there- 
 with to keep themselves clear ; and to lay before such 
 as have unwarily engaged in it, their danger of totally 
 losing that tender sensibility to the sufferings of their 
 fellow-creatures, the want whereof sets men beneath 
 the brute creation ; a trade by which many thousands 
 of innocent people are brought under the greatest 
 5*
 
 54 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 anxiety and sufferings, by being violently rent from 
 their native country in the most cruel manner, and 
 brought to our colonies to be employed in hard labor 
 in climates unsuited to their nature, or in a state of 
 the most abject and barbarous slavery, subject to the 
 humors and inhuman lash of some of the most hard- 
 hearted and inconsiderate of mankind, without any 
 hopes of ever returning to their native land, or see- 
 ing an end to their misery j nor must we omit, in 
 this dismal account, the weight of blood which lies 
 on the promoters of this trade, from the great num- 
 bers that are yearly butchered in the incursions and 
 battles which happen between the negroes in order 
 to procure the number delivered to the Europeans, 
 and the many of these poor creatures whose hearts 
 are broken, and they perish through misery and 
 grief, on the passage. May the Almighty preserve 
 the inhabitants of Pennsylvania from being further 
 defiled by a trade which is entered upon from such 
 isensual motives and carried on by such devilish 
 means ! 
 
 Persons whose minds are engrossed by the pleasures 
 and profits of this life are generally so taken up with 
 present objects that they are but little affected with 
 the distant sufferings of their fellow-creatures, es- 
 pecially when their wealth is thereby increased. 
 Nevertheless, every one who is in any respect con- 
 cerned in this wicked traffic, if not so hardened by 
 the love of wealth as to be void of feeling, must, 
 upon a serious recollection, be impressed with sur-
 
 OF AFRICA, ETC. 55 
 
 prise and terror, from a sense that there is a righteous j 
 God, and a state of retribution which will last forever. / 
 It is frequently alleged, in excuse for this trade, that / 
 the negroes sold in our plantations are mostly persons / 
 who have been taken prisoners in those wars which 
 arise among themselves from their mutual animosi- 
 ties, and that these prisoners would be sacrificed 
 to the resentment of those who have taken them 
 captive, if they were not purchased and brought away 
 by the Europeans. It is also represented that the 
 negroes are generally a stupid, savage people, whose 
 situation in their own country is necessitous and un- 
 happy, which has induced many to believe that the 
 bringing them from their native land is rather a kind- 
 ness than an injury. 
 
 To cqnfute_these false_representations, the follow- 
 ing extracts are proposed to the candid reader's con- 
 sideration : they are taken from the writings of the 
 principal officers, not only in the English, but in the 
 French and Dutch factories or settlements in Guinea, 
 some of whom have lived many years in those 
 countries, and have been eye-witnesses to the trans- 
 actions they relate. By which it will appear that 
 the negroes are generally a sensible, humane, and 
 sociable people, and that their capacity is as good and 
 as capable of improvement as that of the whites. > 
 That their country, though unfriendly to the Euro- / 
 peans, yet appears peculiarly agreeable and well / 
 adapted to the nature of the blacks, and so fruitful / 
 as to furnish its inhabitants plentifully with the
 
 56 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 necessaries of life with much less labor than in our 
 more northern climates. 
 
 '^And, as to the common argument alleged in de- 
 fence of the trade,-^-viz. : that the slaves sold to the 
 Europeans are captives taken in war, who would be 
 destroyed by their conquerors if not thus purchased, 
 it is without foundation : for, although there were 
 doubtless ^wars among the negroes before the Euro- 
 peans began to trade with them, yet certain it is 
 that sinc_fi__that time those calamities have pro- 
 digiously increased, which is principally owing. to_the 
 solicitations of the white people, who have instigated 
 the poor Africans by every method, even the most 
 iniquitous and cruel, to procure slaves to load their 
 vessels, which they freely and gladly purchase, with- 
 out any regard to the precepts of the gospel, the 
 feelings of humanity, or the common dictates of 
 reason and equity. 
 
 This plainly appears from the account given by 
 Andrew Brue, General Director of the French fac- 
 tory at Senegal, who travelled much on and about 
 the two great rivers of Senegal and Gambia. In 
 Astley's Collection of Voyages, he is spoken of as a 
 person of judgment, and one who had had sufficient 
 opportunities, by his long residence there, of gaining 
 a thorough knowledge of the manners, customs, and 
 dispositions of the people inhabiting the country for 
 about four hundred miles along the coast extending 
 on each side the before-mentioned rivers. Speaking 
 of the Papel negroes, (among whom he was then en-
 
 OF AFRICA, E n -'C. 57 
 
 deavoring to erect a factory,) he says, u They are I 
 at continual wars with their neighbors, whom they 
 invade as often as they think it for their advantage, 
 .... These wars of theirs are never long. Generally 
 speaking, they are incursions or expeditions of five 
 or six days." He adds, 
 
 " The Europeans are far from desiring to act as 
 peace-makers among them, (i.e. the negroes,) which 
 would be contrary to their interest, since the greater 
 the wars are, the more slaves." - 
 
 And now, reader, if, from the example of others, 
 and without a sufficient knowledge of the deplorable 
 consequences attendant on this trade, thou hast in- 
 advertently engaged therein, let me beseech thee, by 
 the mercies of Christ Jesus our Lord, (those mercies 
 which, perhaps, ere long, thou and I shall desire to 
 fly to as our only refuge,) that thou wouldst refrain a 
 practice so inconsistent with thy duty both as a 
 Christian and a man. Remember, the first and chief \ 
 commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart. And that the second, like unto 
 it, is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That 
 our blessed Redeemer has enjoined us to do unto 
 others as we would they should do unto us, and that 
 it will be those who have been righteous and merciful 
 to their fellow-creatures that will be entitled to the 
 mercy of the Great Judge of heaven and earth, be- 
 fore whom we must all appear to give an account of 
 the deeds done in the body. 
 
 And, as for those who confess themselves now
 
 58 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 convinced of the iniquity and injustice of buying 
 and selling their fellow-creatures, and yet continue to 
 keep those negroes they are possessed of in bondage, 
 for the sake of the profit arising from their labor, it 
 behooves them seriously to consider their motives for 
 such a conduct, whether the distinction they make 
 between buying a negro and keeping the same negro 
 or his offspring in perpetual bondage is not a plea 
 founded more in words than supported by truth; for 
 it must be obvious, to every person who is not blinded 
 by the desire of gain, that the__rightjby_ which these 
 men hold the negroes in bondage is no other than 
 what is derived from those who stole them, who, 
 having no other title but that which robbers have 
 over their prey, could not convey any better to the 
 purchaser; and that, therefore, to continue to hold 
 them in bondage for worldly advantage, by no other 
 right than that which those guilty men give them, 
 is consenting to and partaking of their guilt. In- 
 ^taioces may fall out where men of candor may be 
 concerned in the purchase of negroes purely from a 
 principle of charity ; and there are also many of the 
 blacks among us whose dispositions, infirmities, or 
 age makes it necessary they should be under care ; 
 but, in the case before mentioned, where persons de- 
 clared themselves convinced of the injustice and ini- 
 quity of this trade, and are possessed of negroes 
 who are capable of managing for themselves, and 
 have sufficiently paid, by their labor, for their pur- 
 chase or bringing up, besides the profit some families
 
 OP AFRICA, ETC. 59 
 
 have reaped, during a long course of years, from the 
 labor of their progenitors, it is the undoubted duty 
 of their possessors to restore them their liberty, and 
 also to use all reasonable endeavors to enable them to 
 procure a comfortable living, not only as an act of 
 justice to the individuals, but as a debt due on ac- 
 count of the oppression and injustice perpetrated on 
 them or their ancestors, and as the best means to 
 avert the judgments of God, which it is to be feared 
 will fall on families and countries in proportion as 
 they have, more or less, denied themselves with this 
 iniquitous traffic. 
 
 Doubts may arise in the minds of some, whether 
 the foregoing account relating to the natural capacity 
 and good disposition of many of the inhabitants of 
 Guinea, and of the violent manner in which they ap- 
 pear to be torn from their native land, is sufficiently 
 founded on truth, as the negroes who are brought to 
 us are seldom heard to complain, and do not manifest 
 that docility and quickness of parts which might be 
 expected from this account. Persons who may make 
 such objections are desired impartially to consider 
 whether this is not owing to the many discourage- 
 ments these poor Africans labor under, though in an 
 enlightened Christian country, and the little op- 
 portunity they have of exerting and improving their 
 natural talents. They are constantly employed in 
 servile labor; and the abject condition in which we 
 see them from our childhood has a natural tendency 
 to create in us an idea of a superiority, and induces
 
 60 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 many to look upon them as an ignorant and con- 
 temptible part of mankind. Add to this, that they 
 have but little opportunity of freely conversing with 
 such of the whites as might impart instruction to 
 them, the endeavoring of which would, indeed, by 
 most be accounted folly, if not presumption. A 
 fondness for wealth, or for gaining esteem and honor, 
 is what prompts most men to the desire of excelling 
 others; but these motives for the exertion and im- 
 provement of their faculties can have but little or no 
 influence upon the minds of the negroes, few of them 
 having hopes of attaining to any condition beyond 
 that of slavery; so that thoughjthe. .natural capacity of 
 many of them be ever so good, yet they have no in- 
 ducement or opportunity of exerting it to any advan- 
 tage, which naturally tends to depress their minds 
 and sink their spirits into habits of idleness and sloth, 
 which they would, in all likelihood, have been free 
 from had they stood upon an equal footing with the 
 white people. Nevertheless, it may with truth be 
 said, that among those who have obtained their 
 freedom, as well as those who remain in servitude, 
 'some have manifested as much sagacity and upright- 
 ness of heart as could have been expected from the 
 whites under the like circumstances ; and, if all the 
 free negroes have not done the same, is it a matter 
 of surprise ? Have we not reason to make complaint 
 with respect to many of our white servants, when 
 from under our care ? though most of them have had 
 much greater advantages than the blacks, who, even
 
 OF AFRICA, ETC. 61 
 
 when free, still labor under the difficulties before 
 mentioned, having but little access to, and intercourse 
 with, the white people ; they yet remained confined 
 within the former limits of conversation with those 
 of their own color, and consequently have but little 
 more opportunity of knowledge and improvement 
 than when in slavery. 
 
 And, if they seldom complain of the unjust and 
 cruel usage they have received in being forced from 
 their native country, &c., it is not to be wondered at; 
 as it is a considerable time after their arrival among 
 us before they can speak our language, and, by the 
 time they are able to express themselves, they cannot 
 but observe, from the behavior of the whites, that 
 little or no notice would be taken of their com- 
 plaints. Yet let any person inquire of those who had 
 attained the age of reason before they were brought 
 from their native land, and he shall hear such rela- 
 tions as, if not lost to the common feelings of hu- 
 manity, will sensibly affect his heart. The case of 
 a poor negro, not long since brought from Guinea, is 
 a recent instance of this kind. From his first arrival 
 he appeared thoughtful and dejected, the cause of 
 which was not known till he was able to speak Eng- 
 lish, when the account he gave of himself was, that 
 he had a wife and children in his own country; that, 
 some of them being sick and thirsty, he went in the 
 night-time to fetch water at a spring, where he was 
 violently seized and carried away by some persons who 
 lay in wait to catch men, whence he was transported to
 
 62 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 America; the remembrance of his family, friends, 
 and other connections left behind, which he never 
 expected to see any more, were the principal causes 
 of his dejection and grief. Can any compassionate 
 heart hear this relation without being affected with 
 sympathy and sorrow? And doubtless the case of 
 many of these unhappy people would, upon inquiry, 
 appear attended with circumstances equally tragical 
 and aggravating. Now, you that have studied the 
 book of conscience, and those that are learned in 
 the law, what will you say to this deplorable case? 
 When and how has this man forfeited his liberty ? 
 Does not justice loudly call for its being restored to 
 him ? Has he not the same right to demand it as 
 any of us should have if we had been violently 
 snatched by pirates from our native land ? Where 
 instances of this kind frequently occur, and are 
 neither inquired into nor redressed by those whose 
 duty it is to seek judgment and relieve the op- 
 pressed, what can be expected but that the groans 
 and cries of these sufferers will reach heaven ? and 
 what shall you do when God riseth up ? and when he 
 visiteth, what shall you answer him ? 
 
 It is scarce to be doubted but that the foregoing 
 accounts will beget in the heart of every considerate 
 reader an earnest desire to see a stop put to this com- 
 plicated evil; but the objection with many is, What 
 shall be done with those negroes already imported 
 and born in our families? Must they be sent to 
 Africa? There are objections which weigh with
 
 Or AFRICA, ETC. 63 
 
 many well-disposed people ; and, indeed, it must be 
 granted there are difficulties in the way, nor can any 
 general change be made, or reformation effected, with- 
 out some : but the difficulties are not so great but 
 that they may be surmounted. If the govern- 
 ment was so sensible of the iniquity and danger at- 
 tendant on this practice, as to be willing to seek a 
 remedy, doubtless the Almighty would bless this 
 good intention, and such methods would be thought 
 of as would not only put an end to the unjust op- 
 pression of the negroes, but might bring them under 
 such regulations as would enable them to become pro- 
 fitable members of society. 
 
 Upon the whole of what has been said, it must 
 appear to every honest, unprejudiced reader that the 
 negroes are equally entitled to the common privileges 
 of mankind with the whites; that they have the same 
 rational powers, the same natural affections, and are 
 as susceptible of pain and grief as they ; that, there- 
 fore, the bringing and keeping them in bondage is 
 an instance of oppression and injustice of the most 
 grievous nature, such as is scarcely to be paralleled 
 by any example in the present or former ages. Many 
 of its woful effects have already been expressed, but 
 those which more particularly call for the notice and 
 redress of the government arise from its incon- 
 sistency with every thing that is just and humane, 
 whence the worst effects naturally flow to the religion 
 and morals of the people where it prevails. Its de- 
 structive consequences to laboring people and trades-
 
 64 BENEZET'S ACCOUNT 
 
 men are no less worthy the attention of those who 
 have inclination and power to serve their country. 
 This rank of people, as they are the chief strength 
 and support of a community, so their situation and 
 welfare call for the particular care of every prudent 
 government ; but, where slave-keeping prevails, their 
 places and services being supplied by the negroes, 
 they find themselves slighted, disregarded, and robbed 
 of the natural opportunities of labor common in 
 other countries, whereby they are much discouraged 
 and their families often reduced to want ; to which 
 may be added the discouragement also given by this 
 trade to many poor people that can scarce get bread 
 in our mother-country, who, if not prevented on ac- 
 count of the great number of negroes, would be 
 likely to come over into the colonies, where they 
 might with ease procure to themselves a more com- 
 fortable living than at home. Another direful effect 
 arises from the fearful apprehensions and terrors 
 which often seize the minds of the people, for the 
 suppression of which the most cruel methods are 
 pursued, such as are indeed a reproach to Christianity, 
 and will by degrees harden the hearts of those who 
 are active therein, so as totally to exclude them from 
 that tenderness and sympathy for the sufferings of 
 their fellow- creatures which constitutes the happiness 
 of society and is the glory of intelligent beings. As 
 for the possessors of the negroes themselves, though 
 the sumptuousness and ease in which they live, and 
 the attendance and obsequiousness of their slaves,
 
 OF AFRICA, ETC. 65 
 
 may raise ill their minds an imagined apprehension 
 of their being persons more happy and of greater im- 
 portance than other people, who do not live in the like 
 affluence and state, yet happy would it be if they 
 were sensible how great is their mistake, and could 
 be persuaded seriously to consider and apply the para- 
 ble of the rich man and poor Lazarus mentioned by our 
 Saviour, whereby they might plainly perceive that 
 they have no cause to exult, because of their power 
 and plenty, but have rather occasion to mourn over 
 themselves, their children, and their country; the 
 natural effect of their situation being such, as has 
 been repeatedly observed, " To fill men with haughti- 
 ness, tyranny, luxury, and barbarity; corrupting the 
 minds and debasing the morals of their children, to 
 the unspeakable prejudice of religion and virtue, 
 and the exclusion of that holy spirit of universal 
 love, meekness, and charity which is the unchange- 
 able nature and glory of true Christianity."
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 S L A Y E R Y, 
 
 JOHN WESLEY, A.M. 
 
 " AND THE LORD SAID WHAT HAST THOU DONE ? THE VOICE OF THT 
 BROTHER'S BLOOD CRIETH UNTO ME FROM THE GROUND." GEN. chap. iv. 
 
 ORIGINALLY FEINTED IN LONDON. 
 
 9
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE author of the following pages needs no in- 
 troduction or commendation to the intelligent reader. 
 
 As the founder of a great church polity, his 
 authority is universally acknowledged within that 
 religious community, and generally respected over 
 the Christian world. 
 
 More especially is this the case in some of the 
 Southern States of our Union, where the Methodist 
 societies embrace, perhaps, within their borders, the 
 most numerous and influential congregations of any 
 Church organization. Yet, while many of the re- 
 ligious opinions of John Wesley are still cherished 
 there in all their vitality and authority, it is believed 
 that his views on the great question of Slavery are 
 not fully appreciated, if even they are generally 
 known. 
 
 The abridgment now presented of his essay on this 
 important subject may therefore prove instructive and
 
 70 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 suggestive to the candid inquirer, whatever his re- 
 ligious or political opinions may be. 
 
 The portions of the treatise omitted, relate chiefly 
 to the horrors of the Africa-n slave-trade ; it seeming 
 hardly necessary to republish them at this day, when, 
 by the universal consent of Christendom, that infa- 
 mous pursuit is outlawed and punished as piracy on 
 the high seas. Such parts, however, have been re- 
 tained as appear equally to apply to that great system 
 of internal traffic in human beings, still prevailing 
 so extensively throughout the Southern States of our 
 Union, and which may be regarded as the darkest 
 feature of American Slavery.
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 
 
 1. BY Slavery I mean domestic slavery, or that 
 of a servant to a master. A late ingenious writer 
 well observes, " The variety of forms in which 
 slavery appears, makes it almost impossible to con- 
 vey a just notion of it by way of definition. There 
 are however certain properties which have accom- 
 panied slavery in most places, whereby it is easily 
 distinguished from that mild domestic service which 
 obtains in our own country."* 
 
 2. Slavery imports an obligation of perpetual ser- 
 vice, an obligation which only the consent of the 
 master can dissolve. Neither, in some countries, can 
 the master himself dissolve it without the consent 
 of judges appointed by law. It generally gives the 
 master an arbitrary power of any correction not 
 affecting life or limb. Sometimes even these are 
 exposed to his will, or protected only by a fine or 
 some slight punishment, too inconsiderable to re- 
 strain a master of a harsh temper. It creates an 
 
 * See Mr. Hargrave's plea for Somerset the negro. 
 
 71
 
 72 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 incapacity of acquiring any thing, except for the 
 master's benefit. It allows the master to alienate 
 the slave in the same manner as his cows and 
 horses. Lastly, it descends in its full extent from 
 parent to child, even to the latest generation. 
 
 3. The beginning of this may be dated from the 
 remotest period of which we have an account in 
 history. It commenced in the barbarous state of 
 society, and in process of time spread into all nations. 
 It prevailed particularly among the Jews, the 
 Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient Germans; and 
 was transmitted by them to the various kingdoms 
 and states which arose out of the ruins of the 
 Roman empire. But after Christianity prevailed, it 
 gradually fell into decline in almost all parts of 
 Europe. This great change began in Spain, about 
 the end of the eighth century, and was become 
 general in most other kingdoms of Europe before the 
 middle of the fourteenth. 
 
 4. From this time slavery was nearly extinct till 
 the commencement of the sixteenth century, when 
 the discovery of America and of the western and 
 eastern coasts of Africa gave occasion to the re- 
 vival of it. It took its rise from the Portuguese, 
 who, to supply the Spaniards with men to cultivate 
 their new possessions in America, procured negroes 
 from Africa, whom they sold for slaves to the Ame- 
 rican Spaniards. This began in the year 1508, 
 when they imported the first negroes into His- 
 paniola. In 1540, Charles the Fifth, then King
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 73 
 
 of Spain, determined to put an end to negro-slavery, 
 giving positive orders that all the negro slaves in 
 the Spanish dominions should be set free. And 
 this was accordingly done by Lagasca, whom he 
 sent and empowered to free them all, on condition 
 of continuing to labor for their masters. But 
 soon after Lagasca returned to Spain slavery re- 
 turned and flourished as before. Afterwards other 
 nations, as they acquired possessions in America, 
 followed the examples of the Spaniards, and slavery 
 has now taken deep root in most of our American 
 colonies. 
 
 II. Such is the nature of slavery; such the be- 
 ginning of negro-slavery in America. But some 
 may desire to know what kind of a country it is 
 from which the negroes are brought; what sort 
 of men, of what temper and behavior are they in 
 their own country; and in what manner they 
 are generally procured, carried to, and treated in 
 America ? 
 
 1. And, first: What kind of country is tha* 
 from whence they are brought ? Is it so remark- 
 ably horrid, dreary, and barren that it is a kindness 
 to deliver them out of it? I believe many have ap- 
 prehended so. But it is an entire mistake, if we 
 may give credit to those who have . lived many 
 years therein, and could have no motive to mis- 
 represent it. 
 
 2. That part of Africa whence the negroes are 
 
 7
 
 74 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 brought, commonly known by the name of Guinea, 
 extends along the coast, in the whole, between three 
 and four thousand miles. From the river Senegal 
 (seventeen degrees north of the line) to Cape Sierra 
 Leona it contains seven hundred miles. Thence it 
 runs eastward about fifteen hundred miles, including 
 the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, 
 and the Slave Coast, with the large kingdom of 
 Benin. From thence it runs southward about 
 twelve hundred miles, and contains the kingdoms of 
 Congo and Angola. 
 
 3. Concerning the first, the Senegal Coast, Mons. 
 Brue, who lived there sixteen years, after describing 
 its fruitfulness near the sea, says, " The farther you 
 go from the sea the more fruitful and well-improved 
 is the country, abounding in pulse, Indian corn, and 
 various fruits. Here are vast meadows, which feed 
 large herds of great and small cattle; and the 
 villages, which lie thick, show the country is well 
 peopled." And again : " I was surprised to see the 
 land so well cultivated : scarce a spot lay unim- 
 proved ; the lowlands, divided by small canals, were 
 all sowed with rice ; the higher grounds were 
 planted with Indian corn, and peas of different sorts. 
 Their beef is excellent; poultry plenty and very 
 cheap, as are all the necessaries of life." 
 
 4. As to the Grain and Ivory Coast, we learn, 
 from eye-witnesses, that the soil is in general fertile, 
 producing abundance of rice and roots. Indigo and 
 cotton thrive without cultivation. Fish is in great
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 75 
 
 plenty ; the flocks and herds are numerous, and the 
 trees loaded with fruit. 
 
 5. The Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all who have 
 seen it agree, is exceeding fruitful and pleasant, pro- 
 ducing vast quantities of rice and other grain, plenty 
 of fruit and roots, palm wine and oil, and fish in 
 great abundance, with much tame and wild cattle. 
 The very same account is given us of the soil and 
 produce of the kingdoms of Benin, Congo, and 
 Angola, from all which it appears that Guinea in 
 general, far from being a horrid, dreary, barren 
 country, is one of the most fruitful as well as the 
 most pleasant countries in the known world. It is 
 said indeed to be unhealthy; and so it is to strangers, 
 but perfectly healthy to the native inhabitants. 
 
 6. Such is the country from which the negroes 
 are brought. We come next to inquire what sort of 
 men they are, of what temper and behavior, not in 
 our plantations, but in their native country. And 
 here, likewise, the surest way is to take our account 
 from eye and ear witnesses. Now, those who have 
 lived in the Senegal country observe it is inhabited 
 by three nations, the Jaloss, Fulis, and Mandingos. 
 The king of the Jaloss has under him several minis- 
 ters, who assist in the exercise of justice. The chief 
 justice goes in circuit through all his dominions, to 
 hear complaints and determine controversies; and 
 the viceroy goes with him, to inspect the behavior 
 of the alkadi, or governor of each village. The 
 Fulis are a numerous people; the soil of their
 
 76 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 country represented as rich, affording large harvests, 
 and the people laborious and good farmers. Of some 
 of these Fuli blacks, who dwelt on the river Gambia, 
 William Moore, the English factor, gives a very 
 favorable account. He says they are governed by 
 their chief men, who rule with much moderation. 
 Few of them will drink any thing stronger than 
 water, being strict Mahometans. The government is 
 easy, because the people are of a good and quiet dis- 
 position, and so well instructed in what is right, that 
 a man who wrongs another is the abomination of all. 
 They desire no more land than they use, which they 
 cultivate with great care and industry. If any of 
 them are known to be made slaves by the white men, 
 they all join to redeem them. They not only support 
 all that are old, or blind, or lame, among themselves, 
 but have frequently supplied the necessities of the 
 Mandingos when they were distressed by famine. 
 
 7. The Mandingos, says Mons. Brue, are rigid 
 Mahometans, drinking neither wine nor brandy. 
 They are industrious and laborious, keeping their 
 ground well cultivated, and breeding a good flock of 
 cattle. Every town has a governor, and he appoints 
 the labor of the people. The men work the ground 
 designed for corn, the women and girls the rice- 
 ground -j he afterwards divides the corn and rice 
 among them, and decides all quarrels, if any arise. 
 All the Mahometan negroes constantly go to public 
 prayers thrice a day, there being a priest in every 
 village, who regularly calls them together. Some
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 77 
 
 authors say it is surprising to see the attention and 
 reverence which they observe during their worship. 
 These three nations practise several trades : they 
 have smiths, saddlers, potters, and weavers, and they 
 are very ingenious at their several occupations ; their 
 smiths not only make all the instruments of iron 
 which they have occasion to use, but likewise work 
 many things neatly in gold and silver. It is chiefly 
 the women and children who weave fine cotton cloth, 
 which they dye blue and black. 
 
 8. It was of these parts of Guinea that Mons. 
 Adanson, correspondent of the Royal Academy of 
 Sciences at Paris from 1749 to 1753, gives the fol- 
 lowing account both as to the country and people : 
 " Which way soever I turned my eyes, I beheld a 
 perfect image of pure nature : an agreeable solitude, 
 bounded on every side by a charming landscape ; the 
 rural situation of cottages in the midst of trees, the 
 ease and quietness of the negroes reclined under the 
 shade of the spreading foliage, with the simplicity of 
 their dress and manners, the whole revived in my 
 mind the idea of our first parents, and I seemed to 
 contemplate the world in its primitive state. They 
 are, generally speaking, very good-natured, sociable, 
 and obliging. I was not a little pleased with my 
 very first reception, and it fully convinced me that 
 there ought to be a considerable abatement made in 
 the accounts we have of the savage character of the 
 Africans." He adds, " It is amazing that an illiterate 
 people should reason so pertinently concerning the 
 7*
 
 78 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 heavenly bodies. There is no doubt but that, with 
 proper instruments, they would become excellent 
 astronomers/' 
 
 9. The inhabitants of the Grain and Ivory Coast 
 are represented by those that deal with them as 
 sensible, courteous, and the fairest traders on the 
 coasts of Guinea. They rarely drink to excess ; if 
 any do, they are severely punished, by the king's 
 order. They are seldom troubled with war : if a 
 difference happen between two nations, they com- 
 monly end the dispute amicably. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Gold and Slave Coast, like- 
 wise, when they are not artfully incensed against 
 each other, live in great unity and friendship, being 
 generally well-tempered, civil, tractable, and ready to 
 help any that need it. In particular, the natives of 
 the kingdom of Whidah are civil, kind, and obliging 
 to strangers; and they are the most gentlemanlike 
 of all the negroes, abounding in good manners 
 toward each other. The inferiors pay great respect 
 to their superiors : so wives to their husbands, chil- 
 dren to their parents. And they are remarkably in- 
 dustrious; all are constantly employed, the men in 
 agriculture, the women in spinning and weaving 
 cotton. 
 
 10. The Gold and Slave Coasts are divided into 
 several districts, some governed by kings, others by 
 the principal men, who take care each of their own 
 town or village, and prevent or appease tumults. 
 They punish murder and adultery severely, very fre-
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 79 
 
 quently with death. Theft and robbery are punished 
 by a fine proportionable to the goods that were taken. 
 All the natives of this coast, though heathens, be- 
 lieve there is one God, the Author of them and all 
 things. They appear likewise to have a confused 
 apprehension of a future state; and accordingly 
 every town and village has a place of public worship. 
 It is remarkable that they have no beggars among 
 them, such is the care of the chief men in every city, 
 and village to provide some easy labor even for the"" 
 old and weak. Some are employed in blowing the 
 smiths' bellows, others in pressing palm-oil, others in 
 grinding of colors. If they are too weak even for 
 this, they sell provisions in the market. 
 
 11. The accounts we have of f he natives of the 
 kingdom of Benin is, that they are a reasonable and 
 good-natured people, sincere and inoffensive, and do 
 no injustice either to one another or to strangers. 
 They are civil and courteous. If you make them a 
 present, they endeavor to repay it double. And if 
 they are trusted till the ship returns next year, they 
 are sure honestly to pay the whole debt. Theft is 
 punished among them, although not with the same 
 severity as murder. If a man and woman of any 
 quality are taken in adultery, they are certain to be 
 put to death, and their bodies thrown on a dunghill 
 and left a prey to wild beasts. They are punctually 
 just -and honest in their dealicgs, and are also very 
 charitable, the king and the great lords taking care 
 to employ all that are capable of any work; and
 
 80 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 those that are utterly helpless they keep for God's 
 sake : so that here also are no beggars. The inhabit- 
 ants of Congo and Angola are generally a quiet 
 people. They discover a good understanding, and 
 behave in a friendly manner to strangers, being of a 
 mild temper and an affable carriage. Upon the 
 whole, therefore, the negroes who inhabit the coast 
 of Africa, from the river Senegal to the southern 
 bounds of Angola, are so far from being the stupid, 
 senseless, brutish, lazy barbarians, the fierce, cruel, 
 perfidious savages they have been described, that, on 
 the contrary, they are represented, by them who had 
 no motive to flatter them, as remarkably sensible, 
 considering the few advantages they have for im- 
 proving their understanding; as very industrious, 
 perhaps more so than any other natives of so warm a 
 climate ; as fair, just, and honest in their dealings, 
 unless where white men have taught them to be 
 otherwise ; and as far more mild, friendly, and kind 
 to strangers than any of our forefathers were. Our 
 forefathers ! Where shall we find at this day, among 
 the fair-faced natives of Europe, fl, 
 
 practising the justice, mercy, and truth which are 
 related of these poor blackAfricans ? Suppose the 
 preceding accounts are true, (which r*see_D.o_jea.so.n 
 or pretence to doubt of, ) and we may leave England 
 and France to seek genuine honesty in Benin, Congo, 
 or Angola. 
 
 III. We have now seen what kind of country it is
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 81 
 
 from which the negroes are brought, and what sort 
 of men (even white men being the judges) they 
 were in their own country. Inquire we, thirdly, in 
 what manner are they generally procured, carried to, 
 and treated in America ? 
 
 1. First, in what manner are they procured ? 
 Part of them by fraud. Captains of ships from time 
 to time have invited negroes to come on board, and 
 then carried them away. But far more have been 
 procured by force. The Christians landing upon 
 their coasts seized as many as they found, men, 
 women, and children, and transported them to 
 America. It was about 1551 that the English began 
 trading to Guinea, at first for gold and elephants' 
 teeth, but soon after for men. In 1566, Sir John 
 Hawkins sailed with two ships to Cape Verd, where 
 he sent eighty men on shore to catch negroes ; but, 
 the natives flying, they fell farther down, and there 
 set the men on shore " to burn their towns and take 
 the inhabitants." But they met with such resistance 
 that they had seven men killed, and took but ten 
 negroes. So they went still farther down, till, 
 having taken enough, they proceeded to the West 
 Indies and sold them. 
 
 2. It was some time before the Europeans found a 
 more compendious way of procuring African slaves, 
 by prevailing upon them to make war upon each 
 other and to sell their prisoners. Till then they 
 seldom had any wars, but were in general quiet and 
 peaceable; but the white men first taught them
 
 82 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to 
 sell one another. Nay, by this means even their 
 kings are induced to sell their own subjects : so 
 Mr. Moore, factor of the African Company in 
 1730, informs us: "When the king of Barsalli 
 wants goods or brandy, he sends to the English 
 governor at James' Fort, who immediately sends a 
 sloop. Against the time it arrives he plunders some 
 of his neighbors' towns, selling the people for the 
 goods he wants. At other times he falls upon one 
 of his own towns, and makes bold to sell his own 
 subjects." So Mons. Brue says : " I wrote to the 
 king (not the same) if he had a sufficient number of 
 slaves I would treat with him. He seized three 
 hundred of his own people, and sent word he was 
 ready to deliver them for the goods." He adds, 
 " Some of the natives are always ready, when well 
 paid, to surprise and carry off their own countrymen. 
 They come at night without noise, and, if they find 
 any lone cottage, surround it and carry off all the 
 people." Barbot, another French factor, says, 
 " Many of the slaves sold by the negroes are prisoners 
 of war, or taken in the incursions they make into 
 their enemy's territories \ others are stolen. Abun- 
 dance of little blacks of both sexes are stolen away 
 by their neighbors when found abroad on the road 
 or in the woods, or else in the corn-fields, at the time 
 of year when their parents keep them there all day 
 to scare away the devouring birds." That their own 
 parents sell them is utterly false.
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 83 
 
 3. To set the manner wherein negroes are procured 
 in a yet stronger light, it will suffice to give an extract 
 of two voyages to Guinea on this account. The first 
 is taken verbatim from the original manuscript of the 
 surgeon's journal : 
 
 "SESTRO, Dec. 29, 1724. No trade to-day, 
 though many traders come on board. They informed 
 us that the people are gone to war within-land, and 
 will bring prisoners enough in two or three days, in 
 hopes of which we stay. 
 
 " The 30th. No trade yet, but our traders came 
 on board to-day and informed us the people had 
 burnt four towns ; so that to-morrow we expect slaves 
 off. 
 
 " The 31st. Fair weather, but no trading yet. 
 We see each night towns burning ; but we hear many 
 of the Sestro men are killed by the inland negroes, 
 so that we fear this war will be unsuccessful. 
 
 " The 2d of January. Last night we saw a pro- 
 digious fire break out about eleven o'clock, and this 
 morning see the town of Sestro burnt down to the 
 ground. It contained some hundred houses j so that 
 we find their enemies are too hard for them at pre- 
 sent, and consequently our trade is spoiled here. 
 Therefore, about seven o'clock we weighed anchor, to 
 proceed lower down." 
 
 4. The second extract, taken from the journal of 
 a surgeon who went from New York on the same 
 trade, is as follows : " The commander of the vessel 
 sent to acquaint the king that he wanted a cargo of
 
 84 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 slaves. The king promised to furnish him, and iu 
 order to it set out, designing to surprise some town 
 and make all the people prisoners. Some time after 
 the king sent him word he had not yet met with the 
 desired success, having attempted to break up two 
 towns, but having been twice repulsed, but that he 
 still hoped to procure the number of slaves. In this 
 design he persisted till he met his enemies in the 
 field. A battle was fought, which lasted three days, 
 and the engagement was so bloody that four thousand 
 five hundred men were slain upon the spot." Such 
 is the manner wherein the negroes are procured ! 
 Thus the Christians preach the gospel to the 
 heathens ! 
 
 5. Thus they are procured' \ but in what numbers 
 and in what manner are they carried to America ? 
 Mr. Anderson, in his " History of Trade and Com- 
 merce," observes, " England supplies her American 
 colonies with negro slaves amounting in number to 
 about an hundred thousand every year." That is, 
 so many are taken on board our ships, but at least 
 ten thousand of them die on the voyage ; about a 
 fourth part more die at the different islands, in what 
 is called the seasoning : so that, at an average, in 
 the passage and seasoning together, thirty thousand 
 die, that is, properly, are murdered. earth, 
 sea, cover not thou their blood I 
 
 6. When they are brought down to the shore in 
 order to be sold, our surgeons thoroughly examine 
 them, and that quite naked, women and men, with-
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY 85 
 
 out any distinction. Those that are approved are set 
 on one side. In the mean time a burning iron, with 
 the arms or name of the company, lies in the fire, 
 with which they are marked on the breast. Before 
 they are put into the ships, their masters strip them 
 of all they have on their backs, so that they come 
 on board stark naked, women as well as men. It is 
 common for several hundreds of them to be put on 
 board one vessel, where they are stowed together in 
 as little room as it is possible for them to be 
 crowded. It is easy to suppose what a condition 
 they must soon be in, between heat, thirst, and 
 stench of various kinds ; so that it is no wonder so 
 many should die in the passage, but rather that any 
 survive it. 
 
 7. When the vessels arrive at their destined port, 
 the negroes are again exposed naked to the eyes of 
 all that flock together, and the examination of their 
 purchasers ; then they are separated to the planta- 
 tions of their several masters, to see each other no 
 more. Here you may see mothers hanging over 
 their daughters, bedewing their naked breasts with 
 tears, and daughters clinging to their parents till 
 the whipper soon obliges them to part. And what 
 can be more wretched than the condition they then 
 enter upon ! banished from their country, from their 
 friends and relations forever, from every comfort of 
 life, they are reduced to a state scarce any way pre- 
 ferable to that of beasts of burden. In general a 
 few roots, not of the nicest kind, usually yams or
 
 86 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 potatoes, are their food, and two rags, that neither 
 screen them from the heat of the day nor the cold of 
 the night, their covering. Their sleep is very short, 
 their labor continual, and frequently above their 
 strength, so that death sets many of them at liberty 
 before they have lived out half their days. The 
 time they work in the West Indies is from daybreak 
 to noon, and from two o'clock till dark, during which 
 time they are attended by overseers, who, if they 
 think them dilatory, or think any thing not so well 
 done as it should be, whip them most unmercifully, 
 so that you may see their bodies long after wealed 
 and scarred, usually from the shoulders to the waist. 
 And before they are suffered to go to their quarters 
 they have commonly something to do, as collecting 
 herbage for the horses or gathering fuel for the 
 boilers, so that it is often past twelve before they 
 can get home ; hence, if their food was not prepared 
 they are sometimes called to labor again before 
 they can satisfy their hunger. And no excuse will 
 avail : if they are not in the field immediately, they 
 must expect to feel the lash. Did the Creator intend 
 that the noblest creatures in the visible world should 
 live such a life as this ? 
 
 * "Are these* thy glorious works, Parent of Good?" 
 
 IV. 1. This is the plain, unaggravated matter of 
 fact. Such is the manner wherein our African 
 slaves are procured, such the manner wherein they
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 87 
 
 are removed from their native land, and wherein they 
 are treated in our plantations. I would now inquire 
 whether these things can be defended on the prin- 
 ciples of even heathen honesty ; whether they can 
 be reconciled (setting the Bible out of the question) 
 with any degree of either justice or mercy. 
 
 2. The grand plea is, "They are authorized by 
 law." But can law, human law, change the nature 
 of things ? Can it turn darkness into light, or evil 
 into good ? By no means. Notwithstanding ten 
 thousand laws, right is right and wrong is wrong 
 still ; there must still remain an essential difference 
 between justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy : so 
 that still I ask, "Who can reconcile this treatment of 
 the negroes, first and last, with either mercy or jus- 
 tice ? 
 
 Where is the justice of inflicting the severest evils 
 on those that have done us no wrong ? of depriving 
 those that never injured us, in word or deed, of every 
 comfort of life ? of tearing them from their native 
 country, and depriving them of liberty itself, to 
 which an Angolan has the same natural right as an 
 Englishman, and on which he sets as high a value ? 
 Yea, where is the justice of taking away the lives of 
 innocent, inoffensive men ? murdering thousands 
 of them in their own land, by the hands of their own 
 countrymen, many thousands year after year on 
 shipboard, and then casting them like dung into the 
 sea, and tens of thousands in that cruel slavery to 
 which they are so unjustly reduced ?
 
 88 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 3. That slave-holding is utterly inconsistent with 
 rnercy is almost too plain to need a proof. Indeed, 
 it is said, " That these negroes, being prisoners of 
 war, our captains and factors buy them merely to save 
 them from being put to death. And is not this 
 mercy ?" I answer, 1, Did Sir John Hawkins and 
 many others seize upon men, women, and children, 
 who were at peace in their own fields or houses, 
 merely to save them from death ? 2. "Was it to save 
 them from death that they knocked out the brains of 
 those they could not bring away? 3. Who occa- 
 sioned and fomented those wars wherein these poor 
 creatures were taken prisoners ? Who excited them, 
 by money, by drink, by every possible means, to fall 
 upon one another ? Was it not themselves ? They 
 know in their own conscience it was, if they have any 
 conscience left. But, 4, To bring the matter to a 
 short issue, can they say before God that they never 
 took a single voyage or bought a single negro from 
 this motive ? They cannot : they well know to get 
 money, not to save lives, was the whole and sole 
 spring of their motions. 
 
 4. But if this manner of procuring and treating 
 negroes is not consistent either with mercy or justice, 
 yet there is a plea for it which every man of business 
 will acknowledge to be quite sufficient. Fifty years 
 ago, one meeting an eminent statesman in the lobby 
 of the House of Commons said, " You have been 
 long talking about justice and equity : pray, which is 
 this bill, equity or justice ?" He answered, very
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 89 
 
 short and plain, "It is necessity." Here also the 
 slave-holder fixes his foot ; here he rests the strength 
 of his cause. " If it is not quite right, yet it must 
 be so; there is an absolute necessity for it; it is 
 necessary we should procure slaves, and when we 
 have procured them it is necessary to use them with 
 severity, considering their stupidity, stubbornness, 
 and wickedness." 
 
 I answer, You stumble at the threshold. I deny 
 that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that 
 it should ever be necessary for any reasonable creature 
 to violate all the laws of justice, mercv, and truth. 
 No circumstances can make it necessary for a man to 
 burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can 
 never be necessary for a rational being to sink him- 
 self below a brute. A man can be under no necessity 
 of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of 
 the supposition is so glaring that one would wonder 
 any one can help seeing it. 
 
 5. This in general. But, to be more particular, 
 I ask, first, what is necessary ? and, secondly, to what 
 end ? It may be answered, " The whole method now 
 used by the original purchasers of negroes is neces- 
 sary to the furnishing our colonies yearly with a 
 hundred thousand slaves." I grant this is necessary 
 to that end. But how is that end necessary ? How 
 will you prove it necessary that one hundred, that 
 one, of those slaves should be procured ? "Why, it 
 is necessary to my gaining a hundred thousand 
 pounds." Perhaps so; but how is this necessary?
 
 90 jo UN WESLEY'S 
 
 Xt is very possible you might be both a better and a 
 happier man if you had not a quarter of it. I deny 
 that your gaining one thousand is necessary either to 
 your present or eternal happiness. " But, however, 
 you must allow these slaves are necessary for the cul- 
 tivation of our islands, inasmuch as white men are 
 not able to labor in hot climates." I answer, first, 
 it were better that all those islands should remain 
 uncultivated forever, yea, it were more desirable that 
 they were altogether sunk in the depth of the sea, 
 than that they should be cultivated at so high a 
 price as the violation of justice, mercy, and truth. 
 But, secondly, the supposition on which you ground 
 your argument is false ; for white men, even English- 
 men, are well able to labor in hot climates, provided 
 they are temperate both in meat and drink, and that 
 they inure themselves to it by degrees. I speak no 
 more than I know by experience. It appears from 
 the thermometer that the summer heat in Georgia is 
 frequently equal to that in Barbadoes, yea, to that 
 under the .line; and yet I and my family, eight in 
 number, did employ all our spare time there in fell- 
 ing of trees and clearing of ground, as hard labor 
 as any negro need be employed in. The German 
 family, likewise, forty in number, were employed in 
 all manner of labor; and this was so far from im- 
 pairing our health, that we all continued perfectly 
 well, while the idle ones all round about us were 
 swept away as with a pestilence. It is not true, 
 therefore, that white men are not able to labor, even
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 91 
 
 in hot climates, full as well as black. But, if they 
 were not, it would be better that none should labor 
 there, that the work should be left undone, than that 
 myriads of innocent men should be murdered, and 
 myriads more dragged into the basest slavery. 
 
 6. " But the furnishing us with slaves is necessary 
 for the trade, and wealth, and glory of our nation." 
 Here are several mistakes; for, first, wealth is not 
 necessary to the glory of any nation, but wisdom, 
 virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love 
 of our country : these are necessary to the real glory 
 of a nation, but abundance of wealth is not. Men of 
 understanding allow that the glory of England was 
 full as high in Queen Elizabeth's time as it is now, 
 although our riches and trade were then as much 
 smaller as our virtue was greater. But, secondly, it 
 is not clear that we should have either less money or 
 trade (only less of that detestable trade of man- 
 stealing) if there was not a negro in all our islands, 
 or in all English America. It is demonstrable white 
 men, inured to it by degrees, can work- as well as 
 them, and they would do it were negroes out of the 
 way, and proper encouragement given them. How- 
 ever, thirdly, I come back to the same point : better 
 no trade than trade procured by villany; it is far 
 better to have no wealth than to gain wealth at the 
 expense of virtue. Better is honest poverty than all 
 the riches bought by the tears, and sweat, and blood 
 of our fellow-creatures. 
 
 7. "However this be, it is necessary when we
 
 Z JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 have slaves to use them with severity." I pray, to 
 what end is this usage necessary ? " Why, to pre- 
 vent their running away, and to keep them constantly 
 to their labor, that they may not idle away their 
 time, so miserably stupid is this race of men, yea, so 
 stubborn and so wicked -" Allowing them to be as 
 stupid as you say, to whom is that stupidity owing ? 
 [ Without question it lies altogether at the door of 
 \ their inhuman masters, who give them no means, no 
 opportunity of improving their understanding, and, 
 indeed, leave them no motive, either from hope or 
 fear, to attempt any such thing. They were noway 
 remarkable for stupidity while they remained in their 
 own country. The inhabitants of Africa, where they 
 have equal motives and equal means of improvement, 
 are not inferior to the inhabitants of Europe; to some 
 of them they are greatly superior. Impartially sur- 
 ^vey, in their own country, the natives of Benin and 
 the natives of Lapland. Compare (setting prejudice 
 aside) the Samoeids and the Angolans; and on 
 which side does the advantage lie in point of under- 
 standing? Certainly the African is in no respect 
 inferior to the European. Their stupidity, therefore, 
 in our plantations is not natural, otherwise than it is 
 the natural effect of their condition : consequently, it 
 is not their fault, but yours ; you must answer for it 
 before God and man. 
 
 8. " But their stupidity is not the only reason of 
 our treating them with severity, for it is hard to say 
 which is the greatest, this, or their stubbornness and
 
 THOUGHTS UPOfl SLAVER?. 93 
 
 wickedness." It may be so; but do not these as 
 well as the other lie at your door ? Are not stub- 
 bornness, cunning, pilfering, and divers other vices, 
 the natural, necessary fruits of slavery ? Is not this 
 an observation which has been made in every age 
 and nation ? And what means have you used to re- 
 move this stubbornness ? Have you tried what mild- 
 ness and gentleness would do ? I knew one that 
 did, that had prudence and patience to make the 
 experiment, Mr. Hugh. Bryan, who then lived on 
 the borders of South Carolina. And what was the 
 effect ? Why, that all his negroes (and he had no 
 small number of them) loved and reverenced him as 
 a father, and cheerfully obeyed him out of love : yea, 
 ihev were more afraid of a frown from him than of 
 .many blows from an overseer. And what pains Lave 
 you taken, what method have you used, to reclaim 
 them from their wickedness ? Have you carefully 
 taught them " that there is a God, a wise, powerful, 
 merciful Being, the Creator and Governor of heaven 
 and earth ? that he has appointed a day wherein he 
 will judge the world, will take an account of a 11 our 
 thoughts, words, and actions ? that in that day he 
 will reward every child of man according to his 
 works" ? that " then the righteous shall inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of 
 the world, and the wicked shall be cast into everlast- 
 ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" ? If 
 you have not done this, if you have taken no pains or 
 thought about the matter, can you wonder at their
 
 94 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 wickedness ? You first acted the villain in making 
 them slaves, whether you stole them or bought them. 
 You kept them stupid and wicked by cutting them 
 off from all opportunities of improving either in 
 knowledge or virtue ; and now you assign their want 
 of wisdom and goodness as the reason for using them 
 worse than brute beasts ! 
 
 V. 1. It remains only to make a little application 
 of the preceding observations. But to whom should 
 that application be made ? That may bear a question. 
 Should we address ourselves to the public at large ? 
 What effect can this have ? It may inflame the 
 world against the guilty, but is not likely to remove 
 that guilt. Should we appeal to the nation in 
 general? This also is striking wide, and is never 
 likely to procure any redress for the sore evil we 
 complain of. As little would it, in all probability, 
 avail to apply to Parliament. So many things which 
 seem of greater importance lie before them, that they 
 are not likely to attend to this. I therefore add a few 
 words to those who are more immediately concerned, 
 whether merchants or planters. 
 
 2. May I speak plainly to you ? I must. Love 
 constrains me, love to you as well as to those you 
 are concerned with 
 
 Is there a God ? You know there is. Is he a just 
 God ? Then there must be a state of retribution, a 
 state wherein the just God will reward every man 
 according to his works. Then what reward will he
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 95 
 
 render to you ? Oh, think betimes, before you drop 
 into eternity ! Think now : He shall have judgment 
 without mercy that showed no mercy. 
 
 Are you a man ? Then you should have a human 
 heart. But have you indeed ? What is your heart 
 made of? Is there no such principle as compassion 
 there ? Do you never feel another's pain ? Have 
 you no sympathy, no sense of human woe, no pity for 
 the miserable ? When you saw the flowing eyes, the 
 heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured 
 limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone or a 
 brute ? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a 
 tiger ? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures 
 down in the ship, or when you threw their poor 
 mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting ? 
 Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape 
 from your breast ? Do you feel no relenting now ? 
 If you do not, you must go on till the measure of 
 your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal 
 with you as you have dealt with them, and require all 
 their blood at your hands ; and at that day it shall 
 be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for 
 you ! But if your heart does relent, though in a 
 small degree, know it is a call from the God of love ; 
 and to-day, if you hear his voice, harden not your 
 heart; to-day resolve, God being your helper, to 
 escape for your life. Regard not money. All that 
 a man hath will he give for his life. Whatever you 
 lose, lose not your soul ; nothing can countervail that
 
 96 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade; at all 
 events, be an honest man. 
 
 3. This equally concerns every merchant who is 
 engaged in the slave-trade. It is you that 'induce 
 the African villain to sell his countrymen, and, in 
 order thereto, to steal, rob, murder men, women, and 
 children without number, by enabling the English 
 villain to pay him for so doing, whom you overpay 
 for his execrable labor. It is your money that is 
 the spring of all, that empowers him to go on, so that 
 whatever he or the African does in this matter is all 
 your act and deed. And is your conscience quite 
 reconciled to this ? does it never reproach you at all ? 
 Has gold entirely blinded your eyes and stupefied 
 your heart ? Can you see, can you feel, no harm 
 therein? Is it doing as you would be done to? 
 Make the case your own. " Master," said a slave at 
 Liverpool to the merchant that o.wned him, " what 
 if some of my countrymen were to come here and 
 take away my mistress, and Master Tommy and 
 Master Billy, and carry them into our country and 
 make them slaves ? how would you like it ?" His 
 answer was worthy of a man : " I will never buy a 
 slave more while I live." Oh, let his resolution be 
 yours; have no more any part in this detestable busi- 
 ness ; instantly leave it to those unfeeling wretches 
 " who laugh at human nature and compassion." Be 
 you a man, not a wolf, a devourer of the human 
 species. Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy. 
 
 4. And this equally concerns every gentleman
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 97 
 
 that has an estate in our American plantations, yea, 
 all slave-holders of whatever rank and degree, seeing 
 men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers. 
 Indeed, you say, " I pay honestly for my goods, and 
 I am not concerned to know how they are come by/' 
 Nay, hut you are ; you are deeply concerned to know 
 they are honestly come by, otherwise you are par- 
 taker with a thief, and are not a jot honester than 
 him. But you know they are not honestly come by; 
 you know they are procured by means nothing near 
 so honest as picking of pockets, housebreaking, or 
 robbery upon the highway. You know they are pro- 
 cured by a deliberate series of more complicated 
 villany, of fraud, robbery, and murder, than was ever 
 practised either by Mahometans or Pagans ; in par- 
 ticular by murders of all kinds, by the blood of the 
 innocent poured upon the ground like water. Now, 
 it is your money that pays the merchant, and through 
 him the captain and the African butchers. You, 
 therefore, are guilty, yea, principally guilty, of all 
 these frauds, robberies, and murders. You are the 
 spring that puts all the rest in motion : they would 
 not stir a step without you; therefore the blood of 
 all these wretches who die before their time, whether 
 in this country or elsewhere, lies upon your head. 
 The blood of thy brother (for, whether thou wilt 
 believe it or no, such he is in the sight of Him that 
 made him) crieth against thee from the earth, from 
 the ship, and from the waters. Oh, whatever it costs, 
 put a stop to its cry before it be too late. Instantly.
 
 98 JOHN WESLEY'S 
 
 at any price, were it the half of your goods, deliver 
 thyself from blood-guiltiness. Thy hands, thy bed, 
 thy furniture, thy house, thy lands, are at present 
 stained with blood. Surely it is enough : accumu- 
 late no more guilt; spill no more the blood of the 
 innocent ; do not hire another to shed blood ; do not 
 pay him for doing it. Whether you are a Christian 
 or no, show yourself a man; be not more savage 
 than a lion or a bear. 
 
 5. Perhaps you will say, " I do not buy any 
 negroes : I only use those left me by my father." 
 So far so well ; but is it enough to satisfy your own 
 conscience? Had your father, have you, has any 
 man living, a right to use another as a slave ? It 
 cannot be, even setting revelation aside ; it cannot 
 be that either war or contract can give any man such 
 a property in another as he has in his sheep and 
 oxen ; much less is it possible that any child of man 
 should ever be born a slave. Liberty is the right of 
 every human creature as soon as he breathes the 
 vital air ; and no human law can deprive him ot that 
 right, which he derives from the law of nature. 
 
 If, therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say 
 nothing of mercy, nor of the revealed law of God,) 
 render unto all their due; give liberty to whom 
 liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every 
 partaker of human nature. Let none serve you but 
 by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary 
 choice. Away with all whips, all chains, all com- 
 pulsion. Be gentle towards all men ; and see that
 
 THOUGHTS UPON SLAVERY. 99 
 
 you invariably do unto every one as you would he 
 should do unto you. 
 
 6. thou God of love, thou who art loving to 
 every man, and whose mercy is over all thy works, 
 thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and 
 who art rich in mercy unto all, thou who hast 
 mingled of one blood all the nations upon earth, have 
 compassion upon these outcasts of men who are 
 trodden down as dung upon the earth ! Arise and 
 help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt 
 upon the ground like water ! Are not these also the 
 work of thine own hands, the purchase of thy Son's 
 blood ? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land 
 of their captivity, and let their complaint come up 
 before thee ; let it enter into thy ears ! Make even 
 those that lead them away captive to pity them, and 
 turn their captivity as the rivers in the south. 
 Oh, burst thou all their chains in sunder, more espe- 
 cially the chains of their sins. Thou Saviour of all, 
 make them free that they may be free indeed !
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY also was deeply concerned for 
 the suffering of the negroes on the Southern planta- 
 tions, as well as for the demoralizing effect, on the 
 white population, of the whole system of Slavery. 
 Under date of July, 1736, he writes from South 
 Carolina, 
 
 " I have observed much and heard more of the 
 cruelty of masters towards their negroes ; but now I 
 received an authentic account of some horrid instances 
 thereof. I saw myself that the giving a slave to a 
 child of its own age to tyrannize over, to abuse and 
 beat out of sport, was a common practice ; nor is it 
 strange that, being thus trained up in cruelty, they 
 should afterwards arrive at such a perfection in it." 
 Whitehead's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 94. 
 
 METHODIST TESTIMONY. 
 
 The learned Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous 
 commentary on the Scriptures, says, 
 
 " Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the 
 traffic in human flesh and blood, or those who steal 
 
 100
 
 WESLEY ON SLAVERY. 101 
 
 a person in order to sell him into bondage, or those 
 who buy such stolen men or women, no matter of 
 what color or what country, or the nations who 
 legalize or connive at such traffic, all these are 
 men-stealers, ajadjGod__classes them with the most 
 flagitious of mortals." 
 
 Under the superintendence of Dr. Coke, who 
 was appointed by John Wesley himself as the first 
 bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Churches in Ame- 
 rica, the following remarkable minute was adopted by 
 the Conference in 1784 : 
 
 " r jb!iyery me'mBer"ln~~bu'f^Society who has slaves 
 in those States where the law will admit of freeing 
 them, shall, after notice given him by the preacher, 
 set them free within twelve months, (except in 
 Virginia, and there within two years,) at specified 
 periods according to age. Every person concerne<L^_ , 
 who will not comply wTIK these rules shall have liberty 
 to withdraw within twelve months after the notice is 
 given, otherwise to be excluded. No person holding; 
 slaves shall in future be admitted into the Society 
 until he previously comply with these rules respect- 
 ing Slavery/' 
 
 These regulations were severely attacked at a subse- 
 quent Conference held in Virginia, and, though de- 
 fended with great firmness by Dr. Coke, they were 
 suspended a year afterwards. Lee's History of the 
 Methodists. 
 
 It is related in Dr. Coke's biography that his 
 power over the assembly in his local preaching was
 
 102 APPENDIX TO 
 
 great; and, when this obnoxious subject was omitted, 
 he was caressed and received with veneration and 
 respect. "But on other occasions, when this fatal 
 chord was touched, it instantly vibrated discord 
 throughout the congregation, and applause gave 
 place to execrations. In some places the members 
 of the Society were disgusted, and many withdrew." 
 Notwithstanding his high official position, he at 
 times narrowly escaped with his life from the ven- 
 geance of the mob. 
 
 From these extracts it will be seen that the testi- 
 mony borne by John Wesley and other religious men 
 of that day, while more fearless and uncompromising 
 than is customary in our own, was not universally ac- 
 ceptable to the upholders of Slavery or the communi- 
 ties in which it existed. 
 
 xfS"~1797 the Discipline Contained the following 
 paragraph : ' The preachers an4 other members 
 of our Society are requested to consider the subject 
 of negro-slavery with deep attention, and that they 
 impart to the ^grgneral ConferenceT^through the 
 medium of the pearly (Jonierenc^or otherwise, any 
 important thoughts on {he subject, that the Con- 
 ference may have full light, in order to take further 
 steps towards eradicating this enormous evil from 
 that part of the Church of God with which they 
 are connected/' 
 
 BAPTIST TESTIMONY. 
 
 At a meeting of the General Committee of the
 
 WESLEY ON SLAVERY. 103 
 
 Baptists of Virginia in 1789, the following resolu- 
 tion was offered by Elder John Leland and 
 adop. 
 
 l^at Slaveryis a violent deprivation 
 of thenghts of nature^ and^ inconsistent with re- 
 publican government, and therefore we recommend 
 it to our brethren to make use of every measure to 
 extirpate this horrid evil frnm tihp land, anfl pray^ 
 Almighty God that our honorable Legislature may 
 have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee 
 consistent with the principles of good policy/' 
 
 EPISCOPAL TESTIMONY. 
 
 Bishop Horsley says, " Slavery is an injustice which 
 reconsideration of policy can extenuate." 
 
 Bishop Porteus says, "The Bible classes men- 
 stealers, or slave-traders, among the murderers ^f 
 fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY. 
 
 From a resolution denunciatory of Slavery, unani- 
 mously adopted by the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church in 1818, we make the follow- 
 ing extract : 
 
 "We consider the voluntary enslaving of one 
 part of the human race by another as a gross viola- 
 tipJL_QjLthe most precious and sacred rights of human 
 
 nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, 
 which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, 
 and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and prin-
 
 104 WESLEY ON SLAVERY. 
 
 ciples of the gospel of Christ, which enjoins that 
 'all things whatsoever ye would that v men should do 
 to you, do ye even so to them/ * * * We re- 
 joice that the Church to which we belong com- 
 menced as early as any other in this country the 
 good work of endeavoring to put an end to slavery^ 
 and that in the same work many of its members 
 have ever since been and now are among the most 
 active, vigorous, and efficient laborers. * * * We 
 earnestly exhort them to continue, and, if possible, 
 to increase their exertion to effect the total abolition 
 of Slavery." 
 
 A committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an 
 address to the Presbyterians of that State, says, 
 " That our negroes will be worse ott u emancipated, 
 is, we feel, but a specious pretext for lulling our own 
 pangs of conscience and answering the arguments 
 of the philanthropist. None of us believe that Grod 
 has so created a whole race that it is better for them 
 to remain in perpetual bondage." 
 
 BAYNAL. 
 
 The Abbe Raynal says, "Jfa who supports _Rla-_ 
 very is the enemy of the human race. He divides 
 it into two societies of legal assassins ; the oppres- 
 sors and the oppressed. I shall not be afraid to 
 cite to the tribunal of reason and justice those 
 governments which tolerate this cruelty, or which 
 even are not ashamed to make it the basis of their 
 power."
 
 GENEKAL APPENDIX.
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 WARBURTON. 
 
 Extract from a Discourse preached by Warburton, 
 Bishop of Gloucester, before the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel, at their Anniversary 
 Meeting, on the 21s of February, 1766. 
 
 "To talk (as in herds of cattle) of property in 
 rational creatures creatures endowed with all our 
 faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of color, 
 our brethren both by nature and grace shocks all the 
 feelings of humanity and the dictates of common sense. 
 Nothing is more certain in itself and apparent to all, 
 than that the infamous traffic for slaves directly in- 
 fringes both divine and human law. Nature created 
 jnan free ; and grace invites him to assert his freedom. 
 In excuse of this violation it hatn been pretended, 
 that though indeed these miserable outcasts of 
 humanity be torn from their homes and native 
 country by fraud and violence, yet they thereby be- 
 came the happier, and their condition the more 
 eligible. But who are you who pretend ^0 judge of 
 another man's happiness, that state which each ma v n,
 
 108 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 under_tbe guidance of his Maker, forms for himself, 
 and not one man for another ? To know what consti- 
 tutes mine or your happiness is the sole prerogative 
 of Him who created us and cast us in so various and 
 different moulds. Did your slaves ever complain 
 to you of their unhappiness amidst their native 
 woods and deserts ? Or, rather, let me ask, did 
 they ever cease complaining of their condition under 
 you, their lordly masters ? where they see, indeed, 
 the accommodations of civil life, but see them all pass 
 to others, themselves unbenefited by them. Be so 
 gracious, then, ye petty tyrants over human freedom, 
 to let your slaves judge for themselves what it is 
 which makes their own happiness. And then see 
 whether they do not place it in a return to their own 
 country, rather than in the contemplation of your 
 grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a 
 part, a return so passionately langed for, that, de- 
 spairing of happiness here, that is, of escaping the 
 chains of their cruel taskmasters, they console 
 themselves with feigning it to be the gracious re- 
 ward of Heaven in their future state ; which I do 
 not find their haughty masters have as yet concerned 
 themselves to invade. The less hardy, indeed, wait 
 for this felicity till overwearied nature sets them 
 free ; but the more resolved have recourse even to 
 self-violence to force a speedier passage."
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 109 
 
 VIRGINIA GAZETTE. 
 
 Extract from an Address in the Virginia Gazette, 
 March 19, 1767. 
 
 "Long and serious reflections upon the nature and 
 consequences of slavery have convinced me that it is a 
 violation both of justice and religion ; that it is danger- 
 ous to the safety of the community in which it pre- 
 vails; that it is destructive to the growth of arts and 
 sciences ; and lastly, that it produces a numerous and 
 very fatal train of vices, both in the slave and in his 
 master. 
 
 " To prove these assertions shall be the purpose of 
 the following essay. 
 
 11 That slavery, then, is a violation of justice, will 
 plainly appear when we consider what justice is. It 
 is simply and truly denned, by Justinian, 
 
 ^"Obnstans et perpetua voluntas Jus suum cuique 
 triluendi. 
 
 " A constant endeavor to give every man his right. 
 
 "Now, as freedom is unquestionably the birth- 
 right Of all mankind, Africans as well as Europeans, 
 to keep the former in a state of slavery is a constant 
 violation of that right, and therefore of justice. 
 
 "The ground on which the civilians who favor sla- 
 very admit it to be just, namely, consent, force, and 
 birth, is totally disputable. For surely a man's own 
 will and consent cannot be allowed to introduce so im- 
 portant an innovation into society as slavery, or to 
 make himself an outlaw, which is really the state of a 
 10
 
 110 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 slave, since, neither consenting to nor aiding the law? 
 of the society in which he lives, he is neither bound 
 to obey them nor entitled to their protection. 
 
 11 To found any right in force is to frustrate all 
 right and involve every thing in confusion, violence, 
 and rapine. With these two the last must fall, 
 since if the parent cannot justly be made a slave, 
 neither can the child be born in slavery. l It is not 
 true,' says Baron Montesquieu, ' that fr free mafl 
 can sell himself; for sate supposes a price; but a 
 sTaVe 1 Ulld his property becomes immediately that of 
 his master : the slave can therefore receive no price, 
 nor the master pay, &c. And if a man cannot sell 
 himself, nor a prisoner of war be reduced to slavery, 
 much less can his child/ ^T 
 
 "Yet even these rights of imposing slavery, 
 questionable, nay, refutable, as they are, we have 
 not to authorize the bondage of the Africans. For 
 neither do they consent to be our slaves, nor do 
 we purchase them of their conquerors. The British 
 merchants obtain them from Africa by violence, 
 artifice, and treachery, with a few trinkets to prompt 
 those unfortunate people to enslave one another by 
 force or stratagem. Purchase them indeed they may, 
 under the authority of an act of the British Parlia- 
 ment, an act entailing upon the Africans, with 
 whom we are not at war, and over whom a British 
 Parliament could not of right assume even a shadow 
 of authority, the dreadful curse of perpetual slavery 
 upon them and their children forever. There can-
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 not be in nature, there is not in all history, an in- 
 stance in which every right of men is more flagrantly 
 violated. The laws of the ancients never authorized 
 the making slaves but of those nations whom they had 
 conquered; yet they were heathens and we are Chris- 
 tians. They were misled by a monstrous religion, 
 divested of humanity by a horrible and barbarous 
 worship; we are directed by the unerring precepts of 
 the revealed religion we possess, enlightened by its 
 wisdom, and humanized by its benevolence : before 
 them were gods deformed with passions, and horrible 
 for every cruelty and vice; before us is that incom- 
 parable pattern of meekness, chanty, love, and justice 
 to mankind which so transcendently distinguished 
 the Founder of Christianity and his ever-amiable 
 doctrines. 
 
 " leader, remember that the corner-stone of your 
 religion is, to do unto others as you would they should 
 do unto you : ask then your own heart whether it 
 would not abhor any one, as the most outrageous 
 violator of that and every other principle of right, 
 justice, and humanity, who should make a slave of 
 you and your posterity forever. Remember that 
 God knoweth the heart : lay not this flattering unc- 
 tion to your soul, that it is the custom of the country; 
 that you found it so; that not your will but your 
 necessity consents. Ah! think how little such an 
 excuse will avail you in that awful day when your 
 Saviour shall pronounce judgment on you for break- 
 ing a law too plain to be misunderstood, too sacred
 
 112 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 to be violated. If we say that we are Christians, yet 
 act more inhumanly and unjustly than heathens, with 
 what dreadful justice must this sentence of our blessed 
 Saviour fall upon us ! l Not every one that saith 
 unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven/ (Matt. vii. 21.) Think a moment 
 how nmchjrour temj^raj^y^j^ etera^^ 
 upon an abolition of a practice which deforms the 
 image ofyour God, tramples on his revealed will, in- 
 fringes the most sacred rights, and violates humanity." 
 
 DR. RUSH. 
 
 Dr. Benjamin Rush, an eminent physician of Phila- 
 delphia, issued, in 1773, an Address to the Inhabit- 
 ants of America on Slave-Keeping, from which we 
 extract the following : 
 
 "Liberty and property form the basis of abun- 
 dance and good agriculture : I never observed it to 
 flourish where those rights of mankind were not 
 firmly established. The earth, which multiplies her 
 productions with a kind of profusion under the hands 
 of the free-born laborer, seems to shrink into bar- 
 renness under the sweat of the slave. Such is the 
 will of the Great Author of our nature, who has 
 created man free, and assigned to him the earth, that 
 he might cultivate his possession with the sweat of 
 his brow, but still should enjoy his liberty. 
 
 11 Now, if the plantations in the islands and the south- 
 ern colonies were more limited, and freemen only
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 113 
 
 employed in working them ; the general pioduct 
 would be greater, although the profits to individuals 
 would be less, a circumstance, this, which, by dimi- 
 nishing opulence in a few, would suppress luxury 
 and vice, and promote that equal distribution of pro- 
 perty which appears best calculated to promote the 
 welfare of society.* I know it has been said by 
 some that none but the natives of warm climates 
 could undergo the excessive heat and labor of the 
 West India Islands. But this argument is founded 
 upon an error; for the reverse of this is true. I 
 have been informed, by good authority, that one 
 European who escapes the first or second year will 
 do twice the work and live twice the number of years 
 that an ordinary negro man will do : nor need we be 
 surprised at this, when we hear that such is the 
 natural fertility of soil and so numerous the spon- 
 taneous fruits of the earth in the interior parts of 
 Africa, that the natives live in plenty at the expense 
 
 "* From this account of Le Poivre we may learn the futility 
 of the argument that the number of vessels in the sugar-trade 
 serve as a nursery for seamen, and that the negroes consume a 
 large quantity of the manufactures of Great Britain. If free- 
 men only were employed in the islands, a double quantity of 
 sugar would be made, and of course twice the number of vessels 
 and seamen would be made use of in the trade. One freeman 
 consumes yearly four times the quantity of British goods that a 
 negro does. Slaves multiply in all countries slowly. Freemen 
 multiply in proportion as slavery is discouraged. It is to be 
 hoped therefore that motives of policy will at last induce Britons 
 to give up a trade which those of justice and humanity cannot 
 prevail upon them to relinquish. 
 10*
 
 114 GENEPAL APPENDIX. 
 
 of little or no labor, which in warm climates has 
 ever been found to be incompatible with long life and 
 happiness. Future ages, therefore, when they read 
 the accounts of the slave-trade, (if they do not re- 
 gard them as fabulous,) will be at a loss which to 
 condemn most, our folly or our guilt in ubetting this 
 direct violation of the laws of nature and religion." 
 
 " Christ commands us to look upon all mankind, 
 even our enemies, as our neighbors and brethren, 
 and l in all things to do unto them whatever we 
 would wish they should do unto us.' He tells us, 
 further, that his ' kingdom is not of this world/ and 
 therefore constantly avoids saying any thing that 
 might interfere directly with the Roman or Jewish 
 governments : so that although he does not call upon 
 masters to emancipate their slaves, or upon slaves to 
 assert that liberty wherewith God and nature had 
 made them free, yet there is scarcely a parable or a 
 sermon in the whole history of his life but what con- 
 tains the strongest arguments against slavery. Every 
 prohibition of covetousness, intemperance, pride, un- 
 cleanness, theft, and murder, which he delivered, 
 every lesson of meekness, humility, forbearance, 
 charity, self-denial, and brotherly love, which he 
 taught, are levelled against this evil; for slavery, 
 while it includes all the former vices, necessarily 
 excludes the practice of all the later virtues, both 
 from the master and the slave. Let such, therefore, 
 who vindicate the traffic of buying and selling souls, 
 seek some modern system of religion to support it,
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 115 
 
 and not presume to sanctify their crime by attempt- 
 ing to reconcile it to the sublime and perfect religion 
 of the Great Author of Christianity." 
 
 "Ye men of sense and virtue, ye advocates for 
 American liberty, rouse up and espouse the cause 
 of humanity and general liberty. Bear a testimony 
 against a vice which degrades human nature and 
 dissolves that universal tie of benevolence which 
 should connect all the children of men together in 
 one great family. The plant of liberty is of so tender 
 a nature that it cannot thrive long in the neighbor- 
 hood of slavery. Remember, the eyes of all Europe 
 are fixed upon you, to preserve an asylum for free- 
 dom in this country after the last pillars of it are 
 fallen in every other quarter of the globe. 
 
 "But chiefly, ye ministers of the gospel, whose 
 dominion over the principles and actions of men is so 
 universally acknowledged and felt, ye who estimate 
 the worth of your fellow-creatures by their immor- 
 tality, and therefore must look upon all mankind as 
 equal, let your zeal keep pace with your opportuni- 
 ties to put a stop to slavery. While you enforce 
 the duties of 'tithe and cummin/ neglect not the 
 weightier laws of justice and humanity. ^Slayeryis 
 
 a hydra sin, and includes in if, pypry vinlafinn nf 
 
 precepts of the law and the gospel. In vain will 
 you command your docks to otter up the incense 
 of faith and charity while they continue to mingle 
 the sweat and blood of negro slaves with their sacri- 
 fices."
 
 116 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 SUNDRY TESTIMONIES.* 
 
 SOCRATES : " Slavery is a system of outrage and 
 robbery." 
 
 ARISTOTLE : " It is neither good, nor is it just, 
 seeing all men are by nature alike and equal, that 
 one should be lord and master over others." 
 
 POLYBIUS : " None but unprincipled and beastly 
 men in society assume the mastery over their fellows, 
 as it is among bulls, bears, and cocks." 
 
 PLATO : " Slavery is a system of the most com- 
 plete injustice." 
 
 CICERO : " By the grand laws of nature, all men 
 are born free, and this law is universally binding 
 upon all men." 
 
 " Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." 
 
 " Whatever is just is also the true law ; nor 
 can this true law be abrogated by any written 
 enactments." 
 
 11 If there be such a power in the decrees and com- 
 mands of fools, that the nature of things is changed 
 by their votes, why do they not decree that what is 
 bad and pernicious shall be regarded as good and 
 wholesome, or why, if the law can make wrong right, 
 can it not make bad good ?" 
 
 * For many of these quotations, the compilers are indebted to 
 Helper's valuable work entitled " The Impending Crisis in the 
 South."
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 117 
 
 " Those who have made pernicious and unjust de- 
 crees have made any thing rather than laws." 
 
 LACTANTIUS : " Justice teaches men to know 
 God and to love men, to love and assist one another, 
 being all equally the children of God." 
 
 LORD MANSFIELD : "The state of slavery is of 
 such a nature that it is incapable of being intro- 
 duced on any reasons, moral or political, but only 
 by positive law, which preserves its force long after 
 the reasons, occasion, and time itself whence it was 
 created, are erased from the memory. It is so odious 
 that nothing can be sufficient to support it but 
 positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, 
 may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case 
 is allowed or approved by the law of England, and 
 therefore the black must be discharged." 
 
 LOCKE : " Slavery is so vile, so miserable a 
 state of man, and so directly opposite to the generous 
 temper and courage of our nation, that it is hard to 
 be convinced that an Englishman, much less a gentle- 
 man, should plead for it." 
 
 Again, he says, "Though the earth and all in- 
 ferior creatures be common to all men, yet every 
 man has a property in his own person : this nobody 
 has any right to but himself." 
 
 WILLIAM PITT : " It is injustice to permit slavery 
 to remain for a single hour."
 
 118 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 CHARLES Fox: "With regard to a regulation of 
 slavery, my detestation of its existence induces me to 
 know no such thing as a regulation of robbery and a 
 restriction of murder. Personal freedom is a right of 
 which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal 
 in so depriving him, and he who withholds is no less 
 criminal in withholding." 
 
 Dr. JOHNSON: "No man is by nature the pro- 
 perty of another. The rights of nature must be 
 some way forfeited before they can justly be taken 
 away." 
 
 Dr. PRICE : " If you have a right to make another 
 man a slave, he has a right to make you a slave." 
 
 BUFFON : " It is apparent that the unfortunate 
 negroes are endowed with excellent hearts, and 
 possess the seeds of every human virtue. I cannot 
 write their history without lamenting their miserable 
 condition. Humanity revolts at those odious op- 
 pressions that result from avarice." 
 
 BLACKSTONE : "If neither captivity nor contract 
 can, by the plain law of nature and reason, reduce 
 the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they 
 reduce the offspring." 
 
 Again, he says, "The primary aim of society is to 
 protect individuals in the enjoyment of those abso- 
 lute rights which were vested in them by the im- 
 mutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that the
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 119 
 
 first and primary end of human laws is to maintain 
 those absolute rights of individuals." 
 
 Again, " If any human law shall allow or require us 
 to commit crime, we are bound to transgress that 
 human law, or else we must offend both the natural 
 and divine." 
 
 LORD COKE : " What the Parliament doth shall be 
 holden for naught whenever it shall enact that which 
 is contrary to the rights of nature." 
 
 HAMPDEN : "The essence of all law is justice. 
 What is not justice is not law; and what is not law 
 ought not to be obeyed." 
 
 HARRINGTON: "All men naturally are equal; 
 for though nature with a noble variety has made dif- 
 ferent features and lineaments of men, yet as to free- 
 dom she has made every one alike and given them 
 the same desires." 
 
 FORTESCUE : " Those rights which God and 
 nature have established, and which are therefore 
 called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need 
 not the aid of human laws to be more effectually in- 
 vested in every man than they are; neither do they 
 receive any additional strength when declared by the 
 municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, 
 no human power has any authority to abridge or de- 
 stroy them unless the owner himself shall commit 
 some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
 
 120 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 Again, he says, " The law, therefore, which sup- 
 ports slavery and opposes liberty, must necessarily 
 be condemned as cruel, for every feeling of human 
 nature advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced by 
 human wickedness; but God advocates liberty, by 
 the nature which he has given to man/' 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM : "Tell me not of rights; talk 
 not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I 
 deny the right ; I acknowledge not the property. In 
 vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a 
 claim. There is a law above all the enactments of 
 human codes, the same throughout the world, the 
 same in all times : it is the law written by the finger 
 of God on the hearts of men ; and by that law, un- 
 changeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, 
 and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject 
 with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy that 
 man can hold property in man." 
 
 EDMUND BURKE : " Slavery is a state so im- 
 proper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings 
 and capacities of human nature, that it ought not 
 to be suffered to exist." 
 
 CURRAN, in a burst of passionate eloquence, ex- 
 claims : " I speak in the spirit of British law, 
 which makes liberty commensurate with and in- 
 separable from British soil; which proclaims even 
 to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 121 
 
 sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on 
 which he treads is holy and consecrated by the genius 
 of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what 
 language his doom may have been pronounced ; no 
 matter what complexion, incompatible with freedom, 
 an Indian or African sun may have burnt upon him; 
 no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may 
 have been cloven down ; no matter with what so- 
 lemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar 
 of slavery; the moment he touches the sacred soil of 
 Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the 
 dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; 
 and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disen- 
 thralled by the irresistible genius of Universal 
 Emancipation." 
 
 BEATTIE : " Slavery is inconsistent with the 
 dearest and most essential rights of man's nature ; 
 it is detrimental to virtue and industry ; it hardens 
 the heart to those tender sympathies which form the 
 most lovely part of the human character ; it involves 
 the innocent in hopeless misery, in order to procure 
 wealth and pleasure for the authors of that misery ; 
 it seeks to degrade into brutes beings whom the 
 Lord of Heaven and Earth endowed with rational 
 souls and created for immortality; in short, it is 
 utterly repugnant to every principle of reason, re- 
 ligion, humanity, and conscience. It is impossible 
 for a considerate and unprejudiced mind to think 
 of slavery without horror/' 
 11
 
 122 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 " Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their lungs 
 Receive our air, that moment they are free. 
 They touch our country, and their shackles falL 
 That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
 And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, 
 And let it circulate through every vein 
 Of all your Empire, that where Britain's power 
 Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too !" 
 
 MILLER: "The human mind revolts at a serious 
 discussion of the subject .of slavery. Every in- 
 dividual, whatever be his country or complexion, 
 is entitled to freedom." 
 
 MACKNIGHT : " Men-stealers are inserted among 
 the daring criminals against whom the law of God 
 directed its awful curses. These were persons who 
 kidnapped men to sell them for slaves; and this 
 practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities 
 and oppressions of slavery; nor can a slave-dealer 
 easily keep free from this criminality, if indeed the 
 receiver is as bad as the thief." 
 
 THOMAS SCOTT, the celebrated English Pres- 
 byterian Commentator, says, 
 
 "To number the persons of men with beasts, 
 sheep, and horses, as the stock of a farm, or with 
 bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is, no doubt, 
 a most detestable and anti-Christian practice."
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 123 
 
 MONTESQUIEU, in his " Spirit of Laws," satirically 
 writes : 
 
 " Were I to vindicate .our rights to make slaves of 
 the negroes, these should be my arguments : 
 
 "The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, 
 were obliged to make slaves of the Africans, for 
 clearing such vast tracts of land. 
 
 *' Sugar would be too dear if the plants which pro- 
 duce it were cultivated by any other than slaves. 
 
 " These creatures are all over black, and with such 
 a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied. 
 
 " It is hardly to be believed that G od, who is a wise 
 being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in 
 such a black ugly body. 
 
 " The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold 
 which polite nations so highly value : can there be a 
 greater proof of their wanting common sense ? 
 
 "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures 
 to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a sus- 
 picion would follow that we ourselves are not Chris- 
 tians." Book xv. chap. v. Again, he says, 
 
 (t What civil law can restrain a slave from running 
 away, since he is not a member of society ?" 
 
 " Slavery is contrary to the fundamental principles 
 of all societies." 
 
 " In democracies, where they are all upon an 
 equality, slavery is contrary to the principles of the 
 Constitution." 
 
 " Nothing puts one nearer the condition of a brute 
 than always to see freemen and not be free."
 
 124 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 " Even the earth itself, which teeins with profusion 
 under the cultivating hand of the free-born laborer, 
 shrinks into barrenness from the contaminating sweat 
 of a slave." 
 
 Dr. ROBERTSON, in treating of those causes which 
 weakened the feudal system, and finally abolished 
 slavery in Europe in the fourteenth century, has the 
 following observations : 
 
 " The gentle spirit of the Christian religion, to- 
 gether with the doctrines which it teaches concern- 
 ing the original equality of mankind, as well as the 
 impartial eye with which the Almighty regards men 
 of every condition and admits them to a participation 
 of his benefits, are inconsistent with servitude. But 
 in this, as in many other instances, considerations of 
 interest and the maxims of false policy led men to 
 a conduct inconsistent with their principles. They 
 were so sensible, however, of the inconsistency, that 
 to set their fellow-Christians at liberty from servitude 
 was deemed an act of piety highly meritorious, and 
 acceptable to Heaven. The humane spirit of the 
 Christian religion struggled with the maxims and 
 manners of the world, and contributed more than 
 any other circumstance to introduce the practice of 
 manumission. The formality of manumission was 
 executed in a church or a religious assembly. The 
 person to be set free was led round the great altar, 
 with a torch in his hand : he took hold of the horns
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 125 
 
 of the altar, and there the solemn words conferring 
 liberty were pronounced." 
 
 GROTIUS : " Those are rnen-stealers who abduct, 
 keep, sell, or buy slaves or freemen. To steal a man 
 is the highest kind of theft." 
 
 LUTHER : " Unjust violence is by no means the 
 ordinance of God, and i. Before can bind no one, in 
 conscience and right, to obey, whether the com- 
 mand comes from pope, emperor, king, or master." 
 
 Louis X. : " As all men are by nature free born, 
 and as this kingdom is called the Kingdom of 
 Franks, (freemen,) it shall be so in reality. It is there- 
 fore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted 
 throughout the whole kingdom upon just and reason- 
 able terms." 
 
 LEO X. : " Not only does the Christian religion, 
 but nature herself, cry out against the state of slavery." 
 
 GREGORY XVI. 
 
 It has been only about twenty years since Pope 
 Gregory XVI. distinguished himself by issuing a 
 famous bull against slavery, from which the following 
 is an extract : 
 
 "Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the 
 apostles, and acting, though by no merits of our 
 own, as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
 God, who through his great mercy condescended to 
 make himself man and to die for the redemption of 
 
 L
 
 126 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 the world, we regard as a duty devolving on our 
 pastoral functions, that we endeavor to turn aside our 
 faithful flocks entirely from the inhuman trclfic in 
 
 negroes or any other human beings whatever 
 
 In progress of time, as the clouds of heathen super- 
 stition became gradually dispersed, circumstances 
 reached that point that during several centuries 
 there were no slaves allowed amongst the great 
 majority of the Christian nations; but with grief 
 we are compelled to add that there afterwards arose, 
 even among the faithful, a race of men, who, 
 basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid 
 lucre, did not hesitate to reduce, in remote regions 
 of the earth, Indians, negroes, and other wretched 
 beings, to the misery of slavery; or, finding the 
 trade established and augmented, to assist the 
 shameful crime of others. Nor did many of the 
 most glorious of the Roman Pontiffs omit severely 
 to reprove their conduct, as injurious to their souls' 
 health and disgraceful to the Christian name. 
 Among these may be especially quoted the bull of 
 Paul III., which bears the date of the 29th of May, 
 1537, addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of 
 Toledo; and another, still more comprehensive, by 
 Urban VIII., dated the 22d of April, 1636, to the 
 collector Jurius of the Apostolic Chamber in Portu- 
 gal, most severely castigating by name those who 
 presumed to subject either East or West Indians to 
 slavery, to sell, buy, exchange, or give them away, to 
 separate them from their wives and children, despoil
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 127 
 
 them of their goods and property, to bring or trans- 
 mit them to other places, or by any means to deprive 
 them of liberty, or retain them in slavery ; also most 
 severely castigating those who should presume or 
 dare to afford council, aid, favor, or assistance, under 
 any pretext, or borrowed color, to those doing the 
 aforesaid ; or should preach or teach that it is lawful, 
 or should otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, 
 
 by any possible means, with the aforesaid 
 
 Wherefore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace from 
 the whole confines of Christianity, having summoned 
 several of our venerable brothers, their Eminences 
 the Cardinals of the H. E-. Church, to our council, 
 and having maturely deliberated on the whole 
 matter, pursuing the footsteps of our predecessors, 
 admonish by our apostolical authority, and urgently 
 invoke in the Lord, all Christians, of whatever con- 
 dition, that none henceforth dare to subject to sla- 
 very, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, 
 Indians, negroes, or other classes of men, or be ac- 
 cessories to others, or furnish them aid or assistance 
 in so doing; and on no account henceforth to ex- 
 ercise that inhuman traffic by which negroes are 
 reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but 
 automata or chattels, and are sold in defiance of all 
 the laws of justice and humanity, and devoted to 
 severe and intolerable labors. We further reprobate, 
 by our apostolical authority, all the above-described 
 offences as utterly unworthy the Christian name; 
 and by the same authority we rigidly prohibit and
 
 128 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 interdict all and every individual, whether ecclesi- 
 astical or laical, from presuming to defend that com- 
 merce in negro slaves under pretence or borrowed 
 color, or to teach or publish in any manner, publicly 
 or privately, things contrary to the admonitions 
 which we have given in these letters. 
 
 "And, finally, that these our letters may be 
 rendered more apparent to all, and that no person 
 may allege any ignorance thereof, we decree and 
 order that it shall be published according to custom, 
 and copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of 
 St. Peter and of the Apostolic Chancel, every and 
 in like manner to the General Court of Mount Cita- 
 torio, and in the field of the Campus Florae and 
 also through the city, by one of our heralds, accord- 
 ing to aforesaid custom. 
 
 " Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria 
 Major, under the seal of the fisherman, on the 3d 
 day of December, 1837, and in the ninth year of 
 our pontificate. 
 
 " Countersigned by Cardinal A. Lambruschini." 
 
 I^AFAYETTE. 
 
 " I would never have drawn my sword in the cause 
 of America if I could have conceived that thereby I 
 was founding a land of slavery." 
 
 Again, while in the prison of Magdeburg, he says, 
 " I know not what disposition has been made of my 
 plantation at Cayenne ; but I hope Madame de
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 129 
 
 Lafayette will take care that the negroes who culti- 
 vate it shall preserve their liberty." 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 
 9th, 1786, General Washington writes, 
 
 "I never mean, unless some particular circum- 
 stances should compel me to it, to possess another 
 slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to 
 see some plan adopted by which slavery in this 
 country may be abolished by law." 
 
 In a letter to Robert Morris, dated Mount Vernon, 
 April 12, 1786, he makes the following declaration 
 with regard to slavery : 
 
 " I can only say that there is not a man living who 
 wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted 
 for the abolition of it. But there is only one proper 
 and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, 
 and that is by legislative authority ; and this, as far 
 as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." 
 
 He says, in a letter 
 
 "To the MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, April 5th, 1783. 
 
 " The scheme, my dear marquis, which you pro- 
 pose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation 
 of the black people in this country from the state of 
 bondage in which they are held, is a striking evi- 
 dence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall 
 be happy to join you in so laudable a work, but 
 will defer going into a detail of the business till I 
 have the pleasure of seeing you."
 
 130 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 In another letter to Lafayette, he writes, 
 
 "The benevolence of your heart, my dear marquis, 
 is so conspicuous on all occasions, that I never wonder 
 at any fresh proofs of it; but your late purchase of 
 an estate in the Colony of Cayenne, with a view of 
 emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and 
 noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a 
 like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the 
 minds of the people of this country I" 
 
 In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he further said, 
 
 " There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual 
 abolition of slavery, which neither Virginia nor 
 Maryland have at present, but which nothing is 
 more certain than they must have, and at a period 
 not remote. " 
 
 From his last will and testament we make the 
 following extract : 
 
 " Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and 
 desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own 
 right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate 
 them during her life would, though earnestly wished 
 by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, 
 on account of their intermixture by marriage with 
 the dower negroes, as to excite the most painful 
 sensation, if not disagreeable consequences, from the 
 latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy 
 of the same proprietor, it not being in my power, 
 under the tenure by which the dower negroes are 
 held, to manumit them." 
 
 When Mrs. Washington learned, from the will of
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 131 
 
 her deceased husband, that the only obstacle to the 
 immediate perfection of this provision was her right 
 of dower, she at once gave it up, and the slaves were 
 made free. 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 On the 39th and 40th pages of his " Notes on Vir- 
 ginia/' Jefferson says, 
 
 "There must doubtless be an unhappy influence 
 on the manners of our people, produced by the ex- 
 istence of slavery among us. The whole commerce 
 between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of 
 the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting 
 despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions 
 on the other. Our children see this, and learn to 
 imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This 
 quality is the germ of all education in him. From 
 his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he 
 sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, 
 either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for re- 
 straining the intemperance of passion towards his 
 slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his 
 child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. 
 The parent storms, the child looks on ; catches the 
 lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the 
 circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the 
 worst of passions, and, thus nursed, educated, and daily 
 exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it 
 with odious peculiarities. The man must be a pro- 
 digy who can retain his manners and morals un- 
 depraved by such circumstances. And with what
 
 132 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 execration should the statesman be loaded, who, per- 
 mitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the 
 rights of the other, transforms those into despots and 
 these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one 
 part and the amor patrise of the other ! for if a 
 slave can have a country in this world, it must be 
 any other in preference to that in which he is born 
 to live and labor for another ; in which he must look 
 up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as 
 depends on his individual endeavors, to the evanish- 
 ment of the human race, or entail his own miserable 
 condition on the endless generations proceeded from 
 him. With the morals of the people, their industry 
 also is destroyed; for, in a warm climate, no man 
 will labor for himself who can make another labor 
 for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of 
 slaves a very small portion, indeed, are ever seen to 
 labor. And can the liberties of a pation be thought 
 secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, 
 a conviction in the minds of the people that these 
 liberties are of the gift of God ? that they are not to 
 be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed, I tremble 
 for my country when I reflect that God is just ; that 
 his justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering 
 numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolu- 
 tion of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situa- 
 tion, is among possible events ! that it may become 
 probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty 
 has no attribute which can take side with us in such 
 a contest." Again, he writes,
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 133 
 
 " We must wait with patience the workings of an 
 overruling Providence, and hope that that is pre- 
 paring the deliverance of these our brethren. When 
 the measure of their tears shall be full, when their 
 groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, 
 doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress. 
 Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of 
 Fate, than that this people shall be free." 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 The eloquent Patrick Henry says, in a letter dated 
 January 18, 1773, on receiving one of Benezet's 
 tracts on slavery, 
 
 " Is it not a little surprising that the professors of 
 Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in soften- 
 ing the human heart, in cherishing and improving 
 its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so 
 totally repugnant to the first impressions of right 
 and wrong ? What adds to the wonder is, that this 
 abominable practice has been introduced in the most 
 enlightened ages. Times that seem to have pre- 
 tensions to boast of high improvements in the arts 
 and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into 
 general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of 
 violence and tyranny which our more rude and bar- 
 barous but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not 
 amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity 
 are defined and understood with precision, in a 
 country above all others fond of liberty, that in 
 such an age and in such a country we find men pro-
 
 134 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 fessing a religion the most inild, humane, gentle, and 
 generous, adopting such a principle, as repugnant to 
 humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and de- 
 structive to liberty? Every thinking, honest man 
 rejects it in speculation. How free in practice from 
 conscientious motives ! Would any one believe that 
 I am master of slaves of my own purchase ? I am 
 drawn along by the general inconvenience of living 
 here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. 
 However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my 
 devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and recti- 
 tude of her precepts, and lament my want of con- 
 formity to them. I believe a time will come when 
 an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lament- 
 able evil. Every thing we can do is to improve it, 
 if it happens in our day ; if not, let us transmit to 
 our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for 
 their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence, for slavery. If 
 we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation to prac- 
 tice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It 
 is the furthest advance we can make towards justice. 
 It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, 
 to show that it is at variance with that law which 
 warrants slavery." 
 
 RANDOLPH. 
 
 That eccentric genius, John Randolph, of Roanoke, 
 in a letter to William Gibbons, in 1820, says, 
 
 " With unfeigned respect and regard, and as sincere 
 a deprecation on the extension of slavery and its
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 135 
 
 horrors as any other man, be him whom he may, I 
 am your friend, in the literal sense of that much- 
 abused word. I say much-abused, because it is ap- 
 plied to the leagues of vice and avarice and ambition, 
 instead of good-will toward man from love of Him 
 who is the Prince of Peace." 
 
 While in Congress, he said, 
 
 " Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that 
 man from the North who rises here to defend slavery 
 on principle." 
 
 CLAY. 
 
 In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the 
 following memorable words : 
 
 " I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from 
 Mississippi say that he requires, first the extension 
 of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, and 
 also that he is not satisfied with that, but requires, if 
 I understand him correctly, a positive provision for the 
 admission of slavery south of that line. And now, 
 sir, coming from a slave State as I do, I owe it to 
 myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to 
 say that no earthly power could induce me to vote 
 for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery 
 where it had not before existed, either south or north 
 of that line. Coming as I do from a slave State, it 
 is my solemn, deliberate, and well-matured determina- 
 tion that no power, no earthly power, shall compel 
 me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery 
 oither south or north of that line. Sir, while you
 
 186 GENERAL APPENDIX. 
 
 reproach, and justly, too, our British ancestors for 
 the introduction of this institution upon the con- 
 tinent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the 
 posterity of the present inhabitants of California and 
 of New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what 
 we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the 
 citizens of those territories choose to establish sla- 
 very, and if they come here with Constitutions es- 
 tablishing slavery, I am for admitting them with 
 such provisions in their Constitutions; but then it 
 will be their own work, and not ours, and their pos- 
 terity will have to reproach them, and not us, for 
 forming Constitutions allowing the institution of sla- 
 very to exist among them. These are my views, sir, 
 and I choose to express them ; and I care not how 
 extensively or universally they are known." 
 
 Hear him further : he says, 
 
 " So long as God allows the vital ^current to flow 
 through my veins, I will never, never, never, by 
 word or thought, by mind or will, aid in admitting 
 one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of 
 human bondage." 
 
 TANEY 1319. 
 
 In the year 1819, the Rev. Jacob Gruber, a 
 minister of the Baltimore Conference of the Method- 
 ist Episcopal Church, was tried in the Frederick 
 County Court, Maryland, for "attempting to excite 
 insubordination and insurrection among slaves" by 
 preaching a sermon in which he set forth the evils
 
 GENERAL APPENDIX. 137 
 
 of slavery and the duties of masters. Mr. Roger B. 
 Taney was one of the counsel for the defence ; and 
 in a pamphlet account of the trial, published in 1819, 
 at Fredericktown, Md., by David Martin, and now 
 lying before us, we find Mr. Taney's views of slavery, 
 of the rights of man, and of the Declaration of 
 Independence, at that time. For the benefit of Mr. 
 Taney's good name, and for the purpose of letting 
 every one compare his former opinions with his 
 recent decision, we offer an extract from his opening 
 speech for the defence : 
 
 " Mr. Gruber did quote the language of our great 
 act of National Independence, and insisted on the 
 principles contained in that venerated instrument. 
 He did rebuke those masters who, in the exercise 
 of power, are deaf to the calls of humanity; and he 
 warned them of the evils they might bring upon 
 themselves. He did speak with abhorrence of those 
 reptiles who live by trading in human flesh, and 
 enrich themselves by tearing the husband from the 
 wife, the infant from the bosom of the mother; and 
 this I am instructed was the head and front of his 
 offending. Shall I content myself," continued Mr. 
 Taney, "with saying he had a right to say this? 
 that there is no law to punish him ? So far is he 
 from being the object of punishment in any form of 
 proceedings, that we are prepared to maintain the 
 same principles, and to use, if necessary, the same 
 language here in the temple of justice, and in the 
 presence of those who are the ministers of the law. 
 12*
 
 138 GENERAL .APPENDIX. 
 
 A hard necessity, indeed, compels us to endure the 
 evil of slavery for a time. It was imposed upon us 
 by another nation, while we were yet in a state of 
 colonial vassalage. It cannot be easily or suddenly 
 removed. Yet while it continues, it is a blot on our 
 national character, and every real lover of freedom 
 confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it 
 must be gradually, wiped away ; and earnestly looks 
 for the means by which this necessary object may be 
 best attained. And until it shall be accomplished, 
 until the time shall come when we can point, without 
 a blush, to the language held in the Declaration of 
 Independence, every friend of humanity will seek to 
 lighten the galling chain of slavery, and better, to 
 the utmost of his power, the wretched condition of 
 the slave. Such was Mr. Gruber's object in that 
 part of his sermon of which I am now speaking. 
 Those who have complained of him r and reproached 
 him, "will not find it easy to answer him ; unless 
 complaints, reproaches, and persecution shall be con- 
 sidered an answer." 
 
 THE END.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 6 o {yyp 
 
 
 RE 
 
 FC'Btu- 
 CT) C.L.
 
 HERN REGIONAL LIBRARY 'FACILITY 
 
 A 000127039 6