Forerunners continued to 1787; divided from this time into four
classes.--First class consists principally of persons in Great Britain
of various descriptions: Godwyn; Baxter; Tryon; Southern; Primatt;
Montesquieu; Hutcheson; Sharp; Ramsay; and a multitude of others,
whose names and services follow.
I have hitherto traced the history of the forerunners in this great
cause only up to about the year 1640. If I am to pursue my plan, I am to
trace it to the year 1787. But in order to show what I intend in a
clearer point of view, I shall divide those who have lived within this
period, and who will now consist of persons in a less elevated station,
into four classes: and I shall give to each class a distinct
consideration by itself.
Several of our old English writers, though they have not mentioned the
African Slave Trade, or the slavery consequent upon it, in their
respective works, have yet given their testimony of condemnation against
both. Thus our great Milton:--
O execrable son, so to aspire,
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurpt, from God not given;
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
I might mention Bishop Saunderson and others, who bore a testimony
equally strong against the lawfulness of trading in the persons of men,
and of holding them in bondage; but as I mean to confine myself to those
who have favoured the cause of the Africans specifically, I cannot admit
their names into any of the classes which have been announced.
Of those, who compose the first class, defined as it has now been, I
cannot name any individual who took a part in this cause till between
the years 1670 and 1680; for in the year 1640, and for a few years
afterwards, the nature of the trade and of the slavery was but little
known, except to a few individuals, who were concerned in them; and it
is obvious that these would neither endanger their own interest nor
proclaim their own guilt by exposing it. The first, whom I shall mention
is Morgan Godwyn, a clergyman of the established church. This pious
divine wrote a treatise upon the subject, which he dedicated to the then
archbishop of Canterbury. He gave it to the world, at the time
mentioned, under the title of "_The Negroes' and Indians' Advocate._" In
this treatise he lays open the situation of these oppressed people, of
whose sufferings he had been an eye-witness in the island of Barbados.
He calls forth the pity of the reader in an affecting manner, and
exposes with a nervous eloquence the brutal sentiments and conduct of
their oppressors. This seems to have been the first work undertaken in
England expressly in favour of the cause.
The next person, whom I shall mention, is Richard Baxter, the celebrated
divine among the nonconformists. In his _Christian Directory_, published
about the same time as _The Negroes' and Indians' Advocate_, he gives
advice to those masters in foreign plantations, who have negroes and
other slaves. In this he protests loudly against this trade. He says
expressly that they, who go out as pirates, and take away poor Africans,
or people of another land, who never forfeited life or liberty, and make
them slaves and sell them, are the worst of robbers, and ought to be
considered as the common enemies of mankind; and that they who buy them,
and use them as mere beasts for their own convenience, regardless of
their spiritual welfare, are fitter to be called demons than christians.
He then proposes several queries, which he answers in a clear and
forcible manner, showing the great inconsistency of this traffic, and
the necessity of treating those then in bondage with tenderness and a
due regard to their spiritual concerns.
The _Directory_ of Baxter was succeeded by a publication called
_Friendly Advice to the Planters_ in three parts. The first of these
was, _A brief Treatise of the principal Fruits and Herbs that grow in
Barbados, Jamaica, and other Plantations in the West Indies_. The second
was, _The Negroes' Complaint, or their hard Servitude, and the Cruelties
practised upon them by divers of their Masters professing Christianity_.
And the third was, _A Dialogue between an Ethiopian and a Christian, his
Master, in America_. In the last of these, Thomas Tryon, who was the
author, inveighs both against the commerce and the slavery of the
Africans, and in a striking manner examines each by the touchstone of
reason, humanity, justice, and religion.
In the year 1696, Southern brought forward his celebrated tragedy of
_Oronooko_, by means of which many became enlightened upon the subject,
and interested in it. For this tragedy was not a representation of
fictitious circumstances, but of such as had occurred in the colonies,
and as had been communicated in a publication by Mrs. Behn.
The person who seems to have noticed the subject next was Dr. Primatt.
In his _Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy, and on the Sin of Cruelty to
Brute Animals_, he takes occasion to advert to the subject of the
African Slave Trade. "It has pleased God," says he, "to cover some men
with white skins and others with black; but as there is neither merit
nor demerit in complexion, the white man, notwithstanding the barbarity
of custom and prejudice, can have no right by virtue of his colour to
enslave and tyrannize over the black man. For whether a man be white or
black, such he is by God's appointment, and, abstractly considered, is
neither a subject for pride, nor an object of contempt."
After Dr. Primatt, we come to Baron Montesquieu, "Slavery," says he, "is
not good in itself. It is neither useful to the master nor to the slave;
not to the slave, because he can do nothing from virtuous motives; not
to the master, because he contracts among his slaves all sorts of bad
habits, and accustoms himself to the neglect of all the moral virtues.
He becomes haughty, passionate, obdurate, vindictive, voluptuous, and
cruel." And with respect to this particular species of slavery, he
proceeds to say, "It is impossible to allow the negroes are men,
because, if we allow them to be men, it will begin to be believed that
we ourselves are not Christians."
Hutcheson, in his _System of Moral Philosophy_, endeavours to show, that
he who detains another by force in slavery, can make no good title to
him, and adds, "Strange that in any nation where a sense of liberty
prevails, and where the Christian religion is professed, custom and high
prospect of gain can so stupify the consciences of men, and all sense of
natural justice, that they can hear such computations made about the
value of their fellow-men and their liberty, without abhorrence and
indignation!"
Foster, in his _Discourses on Natural Religion and Social Virtue_, calls
the slavery under our consideration "a criminal and outrageous violation
of the natural rights of mankind." I am sorry that I have not room to
say all that he says on this subject. Perhaps the following beautiful
extracts may suffice:--
"But notwithstanding this, we ourselves, who profess to be
Christians, and boast of the peculiar advantages 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 mankind. We practise what we should
exclaim against as the utmost excess of cruelty and tyranny, if
nations of the world, differing in colour and form of government
from ourselves, were so possessed of empire as to be able to
reduce us to a state of unmerited 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 representing it as a scheme of
power and barbarous oppression, and an enemy to the natural
privileges and rights of man."
"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 practice 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 revealed religion."
The next author is Sir Richard Steele, who, by means of the affecting
story of Inkle and Yarico, holds up this trade again to our abhorrence.
In the year 1735, Atkins, who was a surgeon in the navy, published his
_Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies, in his Majesty's ships
Swallow and Weymouth_. In this work he describes openly the manner of
making the natives slaves, such as by kidnapping, by unjust accusations
and trials, and by other nefarious means. He states also the cruelties
practised upon them by the white people, and the iniquitous ways and
dealings of the latter, and answers their argument, by which they
insinuated that the condition of the Africans was improved by their
transportation to other countries.
From this time, the trade beginning to be better known, a multitude of
persons of various stations and characters sprung up, who by exposing
it, are to be mentioned among the forerunners and coadjutors in the
cause.
Pope, in his _Essay on Man_, where he endeavours to show that happiness
in the present depends, among other things, upon the hope of a future
state, takes an opportunity of exciting compassion in behalf of the poor
African, while he censures the avarice and cruelty of his master:--
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky-way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope was given
Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
Thomson also, in his _Seasons_, marks this traffic as destructive and
cruel, introducing the well-known fact of sharks following the vessels
employed in it:--
Increasing still the sorrows of those storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with three-fold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the scent
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death;
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along,
And from the partners of that cruel trade;
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,
Demands his share of prey, demands themselves.
The stormy fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
Neither was Richard Savage forgetful in his poems of the _Injured
Africans_: he warns their oppressors of a day of retribution for their
barbarous conduct. Having personified Public Spirit, he makes her speak
on the subject in the following manner:--
Let by my specious name no tyrants rise,
And cry, while they enslave, they civilize!
Know, Liberty and I are still the same
Congenial--ever mingling flame with flame!
Why must I Afric's sable children see
Vended for slaves, though born by nature free,
The nameless tortures cruel minds invent
Those to subject whom Nature equal meant?
If these you dare (although unjust success
Empowers you now unpunished, to oppress),
Revolving empire you and yours may doom--
(Rome all subdu'd--yet Vandals vanquish'd Rome)
Yes--Empire may revolt--give them the day,
And yoke may yoke, and blood may blood repay.
Wallis, in his _System of the Laws of Scotland_, maintains, that
"neither men nor governments have a right to sell those of their own
species. Men and their liberty are neither purchaseable nor saleable."
And, after arguing the case, he says, "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 they not men as well as we? And have they not the same
sensibility? Let us not, therefore, defend or support an usage, which is
contrary to all the laws of humanity."
In the year 1750, the reverend Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy, in
Barbados, published his Natural History of that island. He took an
opportunity, in the course of it, of laying open to the world the
miserable situation of the poor Africans, and the waste of them by hard
labour and other cruel means, and he had the generosity to vindicate
their capacities from the charge, which they who held them in bondage
brought against them, as a justification of their own wickedness in
continuing to deprive them of the rights of men.
Edmund Burke, in his account of the European settlements, (for this work
is usually attributed to him,) complains "that the Negroes in our
colonies endure a slavery more complete, and attended with far worse
circumstances, than what any people in their condition suffer, in any
other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time.
Proofs of this are not wanting. The prodigious waste, which we
experience in this unhappy part of our species, is a full and melancholy
evidence of this truth." And he goes on to advise the planters, for the
sake of their own interest, to behave like good men, good masters, and
good Christians, and to impose less labour upon their slaves, and to
give them recreation on some of the grand festivals, and to instruct
them in religion, as certain preventives of their decrease.
An anonymous author of a pamphlet, entitled, _An Essay in Vindication of
the Continental Colonies of America_, seems to have come forward next.
Speaking of slavery there, he says, "It is shocking to humanity,
violative of every generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the
Christian religion.--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,
And with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excuse his devilish deed?
"That our colonies," he continues, "want people, is a very weak argument
for so inhuman a violation of justice.--Shall a civilized, a Christian
nation encourage slavery, because the barbarous, savage, lawless African
hath done it? 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 revolts at?"
The poet Shenstone, who comes next in order, seems to have written an
elegy on purpose to stigmatize this trade. Of this elegy I shall copy
only the following parts:--
See the poor native quit the Libyan shores,
Ah! not in love's delightful fetters bound!
No radiant smile his dying peace restores,
No love, nor fame, nor friendship, heals his wound.
Let vacant bards display their boasted woes;
Shall I the mockery of grief display?
No; let the muse his piercing pangs disclose,
Who bleeds and weeps his sum of life away!
On the wild heath in mournful guise he stood,
Ere the shrill boatswain gave the hated sign;
He dropt a tear unseen into the flood,
He stole one secret moment to repine--
"Why am I ravish'd from my native strand?
What savage race protects this impious gain?
Shall foreign plagues infest this teeming land,
And more than sea-born monsters plough the main?
Here the dire locusts' horrid swarms prevail;
Here the blue asps with livid poison swell;
Here the dry dipsa writhes his sinuous mail;
Can we not here secure from envy dwell?
When the grim lion urged his cruel chase,
When the stern panther sought his midnight prey;
What fate reserved me for this Christian race?
O race more polished, more severe than they!
Yet shores there are, bless'd shores for us remain,
And favour'd isles, with golden fruitage crown'd,
Where tufted flow'rets paint the verdant plain,
And every breeze shall medicine every wound."
In the year 1755, Dr. Hayter, bishop of Norwich, preached a sermon
before the _Society for the Propagation of the Gospel_, in which he bore
his testimony against the continuance of this trade.
Dyer, in his poem called _The Fleece_, expresses his sorrow on account
of this barbarous trade, and looks forward to a day of retributive
justice on account of the introduction of such an evil.
In the year 1760, a pamphlet appeared, entitled, _Two Dialogues on the
Man-trade_, by John Philmore. This name is supposed to be an assumed
one. The author, however, discovers himself to have been both an able
and a zealous advocate in favour of the African race.
Malachi Postlethwaite, in his _Universal Dictionary of Trade and
Commerce_, proposes a number of queries on the subject of the Slave
Trade. I have not room to insert them at full length, but I shall give
the following as the substance of some of them to the reader: "Whether
this commerce be not the cause of incessant wars among the
Africans--Whether the Africans, if it were abolished, might not become
as ingenious, as humane, as industrious, and as capable of arts,
manufactures, and trades, as even the bulk of Europeans--Whether, if it
were abolished, a much more profitable trade might not be substituted,
and this to the very centre of their extended country, instead of the
trifling portion which now subsists upon their coasts--And whether the
great hindrance to such a new and advantageous commerce has not wholly
proceeded from that unjust, inhuman, unchristianlike traffic, called the
Slave Trade, which is carried on by the Europeans." The public proposal
of these and other queries by a man of so great commercial knowledge as
Postlethwaite, and by one who was himself a member of the African
Committee, was of great service in exposing the impolicy as well as
immorality of the Slave Trade.
In the year 1761, Thomas Jeffery published an account of a part of North
America, in which he lays open the miserable state of the slaves in the
West Indies, both as to their clothing, their food, their labour, and
their punishments. But, without going into particulars, the general
account be gives of them is affecting: "It is impossible," he says, "for
a human heart to reflect upon the slavery of these dregs of mankind,
without in some measure feeling for their misery, which ends but with
their lives--nothing can be more wretched than the condition of this
people."
Sterne, in his account of the Negro girl in his _Life of Tristram
Shandy_, took decidedly the part of the oppressed Africans. The
pathetic, witty, and sentimental manner, in which he handled this
subject, occasioned many to remember it, and procured a certain portion
of feeling in their favour.
Rousseau contributed not a little in his day to the same end.
Bishop Warburton, preached a sermon in the year 1766, before the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, in which he took up the cause of the
miserable Africans, and in which he severely reprobated their
oppressors. The language in this sermon is so striking, that I shall
make an extract from it. "From the free savages," says he, "I now come
to the savages in bonds. By these I mean the vast multitudes yearly
stolen from the opposite continent, and sacrificed by the colonists to
their great idol, the god of gain. But what then say these sincere
worshippers of Mammon? They are our own property which we offer
up,--Gracious God! to talk, as of herds of cattle, of property in
rational creatures, creatures endued with all our faculties, possessing
all our qualities but that of colour, our brethren both by nature and
grace, shocks all the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of common
sense? But, alas! what is there, in the infinite abuses of society,
which does not shock them! Yet nothing is more certain in itself and
apparent to all, than that the infamous traffic for slaves directly
infringes both divine and human law. Nature created man free, and grace
invites him to assert his freedom.
"In excuse of this violation it hath 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 become the
happier, and their condition the more eligible. But who are you, who
pretend to judge of another man's happiness; that state which each man
under the guidance of his Maker forms for himself, and not one man for
another? To know what constitutes 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 the 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 longed for,
that, despairing of happiness here, that is, of escaping the chains of
their cruel task-masters, they console themselves with feigning it to be
the gracious reward of heaven in their future state."
About this time certain cruel and wicked practices, which must now be
mentioned, had arrived at such a height, and had become so frequent in
the metropolis, as to produce of themselves other coadjutors to the
cause.
Before the year 1700, planters, merchants, and others, resident in the
West Indies, but coming to England, were accustomed to bring with them
certain slaves to act as servants with them during their stay. The
latter, seeing the freedom and the happiness of servants in this
country, and considering what would be their own hard fate on their
return to the islands, frequently absconded. Their masters of course
made search after them, and often had them seized and carried away by
force. It was, however, thrown out by many on these occasions, that the
English laws did not sanction such proceedings, for that all persons who
were baptized became free. The consequence of this was, that most of the
slaves, who came over with their masters, prevailed upon some pious
clergyman to baptize them. They took of course godfathers of such
citizens as had the generosity to espouse their cause. When they were
seized they usually sent to these, if they had an opportunity, for their
protection. And in the result, their godfathers, maintaining that they
had been baptized, and that they were free on this account as well as by
the general tenour of the law of England, dared those who had taken
possession of them to send them out of the kingdom.
The planters, merchants, and others, being thus circumstanced, knew not
what to do. They were afraid of taking their slaves away by force, and
they were equally afraid of bringing any of the cases before a public
court. In this dilemma, in 1729, they applied to York and Talbot, the
attorney and solicitor-general for the time being, and obtained the
following strange opinion from them:--"We are of opinion, that a slave
by coming from the West Indies into Great Britain or Ireland, either
with or without his master, does not become free, and that his master's
right and property in him is not thereby determined or varied, and that
baptism doth not bestow freedom on him, nor make any alteration in his
temporal condition in these kingdoms. We are also of opinion, that the
master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations."
This cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year 1729. The
planters, merchants, and others, gave it of course all the publicity in
their power. And the consequences were as might easily have been
apprehended. In a little time slaves absconding were advertised in the
London papers as runaways, and rewards offered for the apprehension of
them, in the same brutal manner as we find them advertised in the land
of slavery. They were advertised also, in the same papers, to be sold by
auction, sometimes by themselves, and at others with horses, chaises,
and harness? They were seized also by their masters, or by persons
employed by them, in the very streets, and dragged from thence to the
ships; and so unprotected now were these poor slaves, that persons in
nowise concerned with them began to institute a trade in their persons,
making agreements with captains of ships going to the West Indies to put
them on board at a certain price. This last instance shows how far human
nature is capable of going, and is an answer to those persons who have
denied that kidnapping in Africa was a source of supplying the Slave
Trade. It shows, as all history does from the time of Joseph, that where
there is a market for the persons of human beings, all kinds of
enormities will be practised to obtain them.
These circumstances then, as I observed before, did not fail of
producing new coadjutors in the cause. And first they produced that able
and indefatigable advocate, Mr. Granville Sharp. This gentleman is to be
distinguished from those who preceded him by this particular, that,
whereas these were only writers, he was both a writer and an actor in
the cause. In fact, he was the first labourer in it in England. By the
words "actor" and "labourer," I mean that he determined upon a plan of
action in behalf of the oppressed Africans, to the accomplishment of
which he devoted a considerable portion of his time, talents, and
substance. What Mr. Sharp has done to merit the title of coadjutor in
this high sense, I shall now explain. The following is a short history
of the beginning and of the course of his labours:--
In the year 1765, Mr. David Lisle had brought over from Barbados
Jonathan Strong, an African slave, as his servant. He used the latter in
a barbarous manner at his lodgings in Wapping, but particularly by
beating him over the head with a pistol, which occasioned his head to
swell. When the swelling went down, a disorder fell into his eyes, which
threatened the loss of them. To this an ague and fever succeeded, and a
lameness in both his legs.
Jonathan Strong, having been brought into this deplorable situation, and
being therefore wholly useless, was left by his master to go whither he
pleased. He applied accordingly to Mr. William Sharp, the surgeon, for
his advice, as to one who gave up a portion of his time to the healing
of the diseases of the poor. It was here that Mr. Granville Sharp, the
brother of the former, saw him. Suffice it to say, that in process of
time he was cured. During this time Mr. Granville Sharp, pitying his
hard case, supplied him with money, and he afterwards got him a
situation in the family of Mr. Brown, an apothecary, to carry out
medicines.
In this new situation, when Strong had become healthy and robust in his
appearance, his master happened to see him. The latter immediately
formed the design of possessing him again. According, when he had found
out his residence, he procured John Ross, keeper of the Poultry-counter,
and William Miller, an officer under the Lord Mayor, to kidnap him. This
was done by sending for him to a public-house in Fenchurch-street, and
then seizing him. By these he was conveyed, without any warrant, to the
Poultry-counter, where he was sold by his master, to John Kerr, for
thirty pounds.
Strong, in this situation, sent, as was usual, to his godfathers, John
London and Stephen Nail, for their protections. They went, but were
refused admittance to him. At length he sent for Mr. Granville Sharp:
the latter went, but they still refused access to the prisoner. He
insisted, however, upon seeing him, and charged the keeper of the prison
at his peril to deliver him up, till he had been carried before a
magistrate.
Mr. Sharp, immediately upon this, waited upon Sir Robert Kite, the then
lord mayor, and entreated him to send for Strong and to hear his case. A
day was accordingly appointed. Mr. Sharp attended, and also William
McBean, a notary public, and David Laird, captain of the ship Thames,
which was to have conveyed Strong to Jamaica, in behalf of the
purchaser, John Kerr. A long conversation ensued, in which the opinion
of York and Talbot was quoted. Mr. Sharp made his observations. Certain
lawyers who were present seemed to be staggered at the case, but
inclined rather to recommit the prisoner: the lord mayor, however,
discharged Strong, as he had been taken up without a warrant.
As soon as this determination was made known, the parties began to move
off. Captain Laird, however, who kept close to Strong, laid hold of him
before he had quitted the room, and said aloud, "Then I now seize him as
my slave." Upon this Mr. Sharp put his hand upon Laird's shoulder, and
pronounced these words: "I charge you, in the name of the king, with an
assault upon the person of Jonathan Strong, and all these are my
witnesses." Laird was greatly intimidated by this charge, made in the
presence of the lord mayor and others, and, fearing a prosecution, let
his prisoner go, leaving him to be conveyed away by Mr. Sharp.
Mr. Sharp having been greatly affected by this case, and foreseeing how
much he might be engaged in others of a similar nature, thought it time
that the law of the land should be known upon this subject: he applied,
therefore, to Dr. Blackstone, afterwards Judge Blackstone, for his
opinion upon it. He was, however, not satisfied with it when he received
it; nor could he obtain any satisfactory answer from several other
lawyers, to whom he afterwards applied. The truth is that the opinion of
York and Talbot, which had been made public and acted upon by the
planters, merchants, and others, was considered of high authority, and
scarcely any one dared to question the legality of it. In this situation
Mr. Sharp saw no means of help but in his own industry, and he
determined immediately to give up two or three years to the study of the
English law, that he might the better advocate the cause of these
miserable people. The result of these studies was the publication of a
book in the year 1769, which he called, _A Representation of the
Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery in England_. In
this work he refuted, in the clearest manner, the opinion of York and
Talbot: he produced against it the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice
Holt, who, many years before, had determined that every slave coming
into England became free: he attacked and refuted it again by a learned
and laborious inquiry into all the principles of Villenage. He refuted
it again by showing it to be an axiom in the British constitution, "That
every man in England was free to sue for and defend his rights, and that
force could not be used without a legal process," leaving it to the
judges to determine whether an African was a man. He attacked also the
opinion of Judge Blackstone, and showed where his error lay. This
valuable book, containing these and other kinds of arguments on the
subject, he distributed, but particularly among the lawyers, giving them
an opportunity of refuting or acknowledging the doctrines it contained.
While Mr. Sharp was engaged in this work, another case offered, in which
he took a part: this was in the year 1768. Hylas, an African slave,
prosecuted a person of the name of Newton for having kidnapped his wife,
and sent her to the West Indies. The result of the trial was, that
damages to the amount of a shilling were given, and the defendant was
bound to bring back the woman, either by the first ship, or in six
months from this decision of the court.
But soon after the work just mentioned was out, and when Mr. Sharp was
better prepared, a third case occurred: this happened in the year 1770.
Robert Stapylton, who lived at Chelsea, in conjunction with John Malony
and Edward Armstrong, two watermen, seized the person of Thomas Lewis,
an African slave, in a dark night, and dragged him to a boat lying in
the Thames; they then gagged him and tied him with a cord, and rowed him
down to a ship, and put him on board to be sold as a slave in Jamaica.
This base action took place near the garden of Mrs. Banks, the mother of
the late Sir Joseph Banks. Lewis, it appears, on being seized, screamed
violently. The servants of Mrs. Banks, who heard his cries, ran to his
assistance, but the boat was gone. On informing their mistress of what
had happened, she sent for Mr. Sharp, who began now to be known as the
friend of the helpless Africans, and professed her willingness to incur
the expense of bringing the delinquents to justice. Mr. Sharp, with some
difficulty, procured a _habeas corpus_, in consequence of which Lewis
was brought from Gravesend just as the vessel was on the point of
sailing. An action was then commenced against Stapylton, who defended
himself on the plea, "That Lewis belonged to him as his slave." In the
course of the trial, Mr. Dunning, who was counsel for Lewis, paid Mr.
Sharp a handsome compliment; for he held in his hand Mr. Sharp's book,
on the _Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery in
England_, while he was pleading; and in his address to the jury he spoke
and acted thus:--"I shall submit to you," says Mr. Dunning, "what my
ideas are upon such evidence, reserving to myself an opportunity of
discussing it more particularly, and reserving to myself a right to
insist upon a position, which I will maintain (and here he held up the
book to the notice of those present,) in any place and in any court of
the kingdom, that our laws admit of no such property[A]." The result of
the trial was, that the jury pronounced the plaintiff not to have been
the property of the defendant, several of them crying out, "No property,
no property."
[Footnote A: It is lamentable to think that the same Mr. Dunning, in a
cause of this kind, which came on afterwards, took the opposite side of
the question.]
After this one or two other trials came on, in which the oppressor was
defeated, and several cases occurred in which poor slaves were liberated
from the holds of vessels and other places of confinement, by the
exertions of Mr. Sharp. One of these cases was singular. The vessels on
board which a poor African had been dragged and confined, had reached
the Downs, and had actually got under weigh for the West Indies: in two
or three hours she would have been out of sight; but just at this
critical moment the writ of _habeas corpus_ was carried on board. The
officer who served it on the captain saw the miserable African chained
to the mainmast, bathed in tears, and casting a last mournful look on
the land of freedom, which was fast receding from his sight. The
captain, on receiving the writ, became outrageous; but knowing the
serious consequences of resisting the law of the land, he gave up his
prisoner, whom the officer carried safe, but now crying for joy, to the
shore.
But though the injured Africans, whose causes had been tried, escaped
slavery, and though many who had been forcibly carried into dungeons,
ready to be transported into the Colonies, had been delivered out of
them, Mr. Sharp was not easy in his mind: not one of the cases had yet
been pleaded on the broad ground, "Whether an African slave, coming into
England, became free?" This great question had been hitherto studiously
avoided; it was still, therefore, left in doubt. Mr. Sharp was almost
daily acting as if it had been determined, and as if he had been
following the known law of the land: he wished, therefore, that the next
cause might be argued upon this principle. Lord Mansfield too, who had
been biassed by the opinion of York and Talbot, began to waver in
consequence of the different pleadings he had heard on this subject: he
saw also no end of trials like these, till the law should be
ascertained, and he was anxious for a decision on the same basis as Mr.
Sharp. In this situation the following case offered, which was agreed
upon for the determination of this important question.
James Somerset, an African slave, had been brought to England by his
master, Charles Stewart, in November 1769. Somerset in process of time
left him. Stewart took an opportunity of seizing him, and had him
conveyed on board the Ann and Mary, Captain Knowles, to be carried out
of the kingdom and sold as a slave in Jamaica: the question was,
"Whether a slave, by coming into England, became free?"
In order that time might be given for ascertaining the law fully on this
head, the case was argued at three different sittings. First, in
January, 1772; secondly, in February, 1772; and thirdly, in May, 1772.
And that no decision otherwise than what the law warranted might be
given, the opinion of the judges was taken upon the pleadings. The great
and glorious result of the trial was, "That as soon as ever any slave
set his foot upon English territory, he became free."
Thus ended the great case of Somerset, which, having, been determined
after so deliberate an investigation of the law, can never be reversed
while the British Constitution remains. The eloquence displayed in it by
those who were engaged on the side of liberty, was perhaps never
exceeded on any occasion; and the names of the counsellors Davy, Glynn,
Hargrave, Mansfield, and Alleyne, ought always to be remembered with
gratitude by the friends of this great cause. For when we consider in
how many crowded courts they pleaded, and the number of individuals in
these, whose minds they enlightened, and whose hearts they interested in
the subject, they are certainly to be put down as no small instruments
in the promotion of it; but chiefly to him, under Divine Providence, are
we to give the praise, who became the first great actor in it, who
devoted his time, his talents, and his substance to this Christian
undertaking, and by whose laborious researches the very pleaders
themselves were instructed and benefited. By means of his almost
incessant vigilance and attention, and unwearied efforts, the poor
African ceased to be hunted in our streets as a beast of prey. Miserable
as the roof might be, under which he slept, he slept in security. He
walked by the side of the stately ship, and he feared no dungeon in her
hold. Nor ought we, as Englishmen, to be less grateful to this
distinguished individual than the African ought to be upon this
occasion. To him we owe it, that we no longer see our public papers
polluted by hateful advertisements of the sale of the human species, or
that we are no longer distressed by the perusal of impious rewards for
bringing back the poor and the helpless into slavery, or that we are
prohibited the disgusting spectacle of seeing man bought by his
fellow-man. To him, in short, we owe this restoration of the beauty of
our constitution--this prevention of the continuance of our national
disgrace.
I shall say but little more of Mr. Sharp at present, than that he felt
it his duty, immediately after the trial, to write to Lord North, then
principal minister of state, warning him in the most earnest manner, to
abolish immediately both the trade and the slavery of the human species
in all the British dominions, as utterly irreconcileable with the
principles of the British constitution, and the established religion of
the land.
Among other coadjutors, whom the cruel and wicked practices which have
now been so amply detailed brought forward, was a worthy clergyman,
whose name I have not yet been able to learn. He endeavoured to interest
the public feeling in behalf of the injured Africans, by writing an
epilogue to the _Padlock_, in which Mungo appeared as a black servant.
This epilogue is so appropriate to the case, that I cannot but give it
to the reader. Mungo enters, and thus addresses the audience:--
Thank you, my massas! have you laugh your fill?
Then let me speak, nor take that freedom ill.
E'en from _my_ tongue some heart-felt truths may fall,
And outraged Nature claims the care of all.
My tale in _any_ place would force a tear,
But calls for stronger, deeper feelings here;
For whilst I tread the free-born British land,
Whilst now before me crowded Britons stand,--
Vain, vain that glorious privilege to me,
I am a slave, where all things else are free.
Yet was I born, as you are, no man's slave,
An heir to all that liberal Nature gave;
My mind can reason, and my limbs can move
The same as yours; like yours my heart can love;
Alike my body food and sleep sustain;
And e'en like yours--feels pleasure, want, and pain.
One sun rolls o'er us, common skies surround;
One globe supports us, and one grave must bound.
Why then am I devoid of all to live
That manly comforts to a man can give?
To live--untaught religion's soothing balm,
Or life's choice arts; to live--unknown the calm,
Of soft domestic ease; those sweets of life,
The duteous offspring, and th' endearing wife?
To live--to property and rights unknown,
Not e'en the common benefits my own!
No arm to guard me from Oppression's rod,
My will subservient to a tyrant's nod!
No gentle hand, when life is in decay,
To soothe my pains, and charm my cares away;
But helpless left to quit the horrid stage,
Harassed in youth, and desolate in age!
But I was born in Afric's tawny strand,
And you in fair Britannia's fairer land;
Comes freedom, then, from colour?--Blush with shame!
And let strong Nature's crimson mark your blame.
I speak to Britons.--Britons--then behold
A man by, Britons _snared_, and _seized_, and _sold!_
And yet no British statute damns the deed,
Nor do the more than murderous villains bleed.
O sons of Freedom! equalize your laws,
Be all consistent, plead the negro's cause;
That all the nations in your code may see
The British negro, like the Briton, free.
But, should he supplicate your laws in vain,
To break, for ever, this disgraceful chain,
At least, let gentle usage so abate
The galling terrors of its passing state,
That he may share kind Heaven's all social plan;
For, though no Briton, Mungo is--a man.
I may now add, that few theatrical pieces had a greater run than the
_Padlock_; and that this epilogue, which was attached to it soon after
it came out, procured a good deal of feeling for the unfortunate
sufferers, whose cause it was intended to serve.
Another coadjutor, to whom these cruel and wicked practices gave birth,
was Thomas Day, the celebrated author of _Sandford and Merton_, and
whose virtues were well known among those who had the happiness of his
friendship. In the year 1773 he published a poem, which he wrote
expressly in behalf of the oppressed Africans. He gave it the name of
_The Dying Negro._ The preface to it was written in an able manner by
his friend Counsellor Bicknell, who is therefore to be ranked among the
coadjutors in this great cause. The poem was founded on a simple fact,
which had taken place a year or two before. A poor negro had been seized
in London, and forcibly put on board a ship, where he destroyed himself,
rather than return to the land of slavery. To the poem is affixed a
frontispiece, in which the negro is represented. He is made to stand in
an attitude of the most earnest address to heaven, in the course of
which, with the fatal dagger in his hand, he breaks forth in the
following words:
To you this unpolluted blood I pour,
To you that spirit, which ye gave, restore.
This poem, which was the first ever written expressly on the subject,
was read extensively; and it added to the sympathy in favour of
suffering humanity, which was now beginning to show itself in the
kingdom.
About this time the first edition of the _Essay an Truth_ made its
appearance in the world. Dr. Beattie took an opportunity, in this work,
of vindicating the intellectual powers of the Africans from the
aspersions of Hume, and of condemning their slavery as a barbarous piece
of policy, and as inconsistent with the free and generous spirit of the
British nation.
In the year 1774, John Wesley, the celebrated divine, to whose pious
labours the religious world will long be indebted, undertook the cause
of the poor Africans. He had been in America, and had seen and pitied
their hard condition. The work which he gave to the world in
consequence, was entitled _Thoughts on Slavery_. Mr. Wesley had this
great cause much at heart, and frequently recommended it to the support
of those who attended his useful ministry.
In the year 1776, the Abbé Proyart brought out, at Paris, his _History
of Loango_, and other kingdoms in Africa, in which he did ample justice
to the moral and intellectual character of the natives there.
The same year produced two new friends in England, in the same cause,
but in a line in which no one had yet moved. David Hartley, then a
member of parliament for Hull, and the son of Dr. Hartley who wrote the
_Essay on Man_, found it impossible any longer to pass over without
notice the case of the oppressed Africans. He had long felt for their
wretched condition, and, availing himself of his legislative situation,
he made a motion in the House of Commons, "That the Slave Trade was
contrary to the laws of God, and the rights of men." In order that he
might interest the members as much as possible in his motion, he had
previously obtained some of the chains in use in this cruel traffic, and
had laid them upon the table of the House of Commons. His motion was
seconded by that great patriot and philanthropist, Sir George Saville.
But though I am now to state that it failed, I cannot but consider it as
a matter of pleasing reflection, that this great subject was first
introduced into parliament by those who were worthy of it; by those who
had clean hands and an irreproachable character, and to whom no motive
of party or faction could be imputed, but only such as must have arisen
from a love of justice, a true feeling of humanity, and a proper sense
of religion.
About this time two others, men of great talents and learning, promoted
the cause of the injured Africans, by the manner in which they
introduced them to notice in their respective works.
Dr. Adam Smith, in his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, had, so early as
the year 1759, held them up in an honourable, and their tyrants in a
degrading light. "There is not a Negro from the coast of Africa, who
does not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the
soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving.
Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when
she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the gaols of
Europe, to wretches who possess the virtue neither of the countries they
came from, nor of those they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and
baseness so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished." And
now, in 1776, in his _Wealth of Nations_ he showed in a forcible manner
(for he appealed to the interest of those concerned,) the dearness of
African labour; or the impolicy of employing slaves.
Professor Millar, in his _Origin of Ranks_, followed Dr. Smith on the
same ground. He explained the impolicy of slavery in general, by its bad
effects upon industry, population, and morals. These effects he attached
to the system of agriculture as followed in our islands. He showed,
besides, how little pains were taken, or how few contrivances were
thought of, to ease the labourers there. He contended that the Africans
ought to be better treated, and to be raised to a better condition; and
he ridiculed the inconsistency of those who held them in bondage. "It
affords," says he, "a curious spectacle to observe that the same people,
who talk in a high strain of political liberty, and who consider the
privilege of imposing their own taxes as one of the unalienable rights
of mankind, should make no scruple of reducing a great proportion of
their fellow-creatures into circumstances by which they are not only
deprived of property, but almost of every species of right. Fortune,
perhaps, never produced a situation more calculated to ridicule a
liberal hypothesis, or to show how little the conduct of men is at the
bottom directed by any philosophical principles." It is a great honour
to the University of Glasgow, that it should have produced, before any
public agitation of this question, three professors[A], all of whom bore
their public testimony against the continuance of the cruel trade.
[Footnote A: The other was Professor Hutcheson, before mentioned in p.
56.]
From this time, or from about the year 1776, to about the year 1782, I
am to put down three other coadjutors, whose labours seem to have come
in a right season for the promotion of the cause.
The first of these was Dr. ROBERTSON. In his _History of America_ he
laid open many facts relative to this subject. He showed himself a warm
friend both of the Indians and Africans. He lost no opportunity of
condemning that trade, which brought the latter into bondage: "a trade,"
says he, "which is no less repugnant to the feelings of humanity than to
the principles of religion." And in his _Charles the Fifth_, he showed
in a manner that was clear, and never to be controverted, that
Christianity was the great cause in the twelfth century of extirpating
slavery from the west of Europe. By the establishment of this fact, he
rendered important services to the oppressed Africans. For if
Christianity, when it began to be felt in the heart, dictated the
abolition of slavery, it certainly became those who lived in a Christian
country, and who professed the Christian religion, to put an end to this
cruel trade.
The second was the Abbé Raynal. This author gave an account of the laws,
government, and religion of Africa, of the produce of it, of the manners
of its inhabitants, of the trade in slaves, of the manner of procuring
these, with several other particulars relating to the subject. And at
the end of his account, fearing lest the good advice he had given for
making the condition of the slaves more comfortable should be construed
into an approbation of such a traffic, he employed several pages in
showing its utter inconsistency with sound policy, justice, reason,
humanity, and religion.
"I will not here," says he, "so far debase myself as to enlarge the
ignominious list of those writers who devote their abilities to justify
by policy what morality condemns. In an age where so many errors are
boldly laid open, it would be unpardonable to conceal any truth that is
interesting to humanity. If whatever I have hitherto advanced hath
seemingly tended only to alleviate the burden of slavery, the reason is,
that it was first necessary to give some comfort to those unhappy beings
whom we cannot set free, and convince their oppressors that they were
cruel, to the prejudice of their real interests. But, in the mean time,
till some considerable revolution shall make the evidence of this great
truth felt, it may not be improper to pursue this subject further. I
shall then first prove that there is no reason of state which can
authorize slavery. 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."
And a little further on he observes--"Will it be said that he, who wants
to make me a slave, does me no injury; but that he only makes use of his
rights? Where are those rights? Who hath stamped upon them so sacred a
character as to silence mine?"
In the beginning of the next paragraph he speaks thus:--"He who supports
the system of slavery is the enemy of the whole human race. He divides
it into two societies of legal assassins; the oppressors, and the
oppressed. It is the same thing as proclaiming to the world, if you
would preserve your life, instantly take away mine, for I want to have
yours."
Going on two pages further, we find these words:--"But the Negroes, they
say, are a race born for slavery; their dispositions are narrow,
treacherous, and wicked; they themselves allow the superiority of our
understandings, and almost acknowledge the justice of our authority.
Yes; the minds of the Negroes are contracted, because slavery destroys
all the springs of the soul. They are wicked, but not equally so with
you. They are treacherous, because they are under no obligation to speak
truth to their tyrants. They acknowledge the superiority of our
understanding, because we have abused their ignorance. They allow the
justice of our authority, because we have abused their weakness."
"But these Negroes, it is further urged, were born slaves. Barbarians!
will you persuade me that a man can be the property of a sovereign, a
son the property of a father, a wife the property of a husband, a
domestic the property of a master, a Negro the property of a planter?"
But I have no time to follow this animated author, even by short
extracts, through the varied strains of eloquence which he displays upon
this occasion. I can only say that his labours entitle him to a high
station among the benefactors to the African race.
The third was Dr. PALEY, whose genius, talents, and learning have been
so eminently displayed in his writings in the cause of natural and
revealed religion. Dr. Paley did not write any essay expressly in favour
of the Africans. But in his _Moral Philosophy_, where he treated on
slavery, he took an opportunity of condemning, in very severe terms, the
continuance of it. In this work he defined what slavery was, and how it
might arise consistently with the law of nature; but he made an
exception against that which arose from the African trade. "The Slave
Trade," says he, "upon the coast of Africa, is not excused by these
principles. When slaves in that country are brought to market, no
questions, I believe, are asked about the origin or justice of the
vendor's title. It may be presumed, therefore, that this title is not
always, if it be ever, founded in any of the causes above assigned.
"But defect of right in the first purchase is the least crime with which
this traffic is chargeable. The natives are excited to war and mutual
depredation, for the sake of supplying their contracts, or furnishing
the markets with slaves. With this the wickedness begins. The slaves,
torn away from their parents, wives, and children, from their friends
and companions, from their fields and flocks, from their home and
country, are transported to the European settlements in America, with no
other accommodation on ship-board than what is provided for brutes. This
is the second stage of the cruelty, from which the miserable exiles are
delivered, only to be placed, and that for life, in subjection to a
dominion add system of laws, the most merciless and tyrannical that ever
were tolerated upon the face of the earth: and from all that can be
learned by the accounts of people upon the spot, the inordinate
authority which the plantation-laws confer upon the slaveholder is
exercised, by the English slaveholder especially, with rigour and
brutality.
"But necessity is pretended, the name under which every enormity is
attempted to be justified; and after all, what is the necessity? It has
never been proved that the land could not be cultivated there, as it is
here, by hired servants. It is said, that it could not be cultivated
with quite the same conveniency and cheapness, as by the labour of
slaves; by which means, a pound of sugar, which the planter now sells
for sixpence, could not be afforded under sixpence-halfpenny--and this
is the necessity!
"The great revolution which has taken place in the western world, may,
probably, conduce (and who knows but that it was designed) to accelerate
the fall of this abominable tyranny: and now that this contest and the
passions which attend it are no more, there may succeed, perhaps, a
season for reflecting, whether a legislature, which had so long lent its
assistance to the support of an institution replete with human misery,
was fit to be trusted with an empire, the most extensive that ever
obtained in any age or quarter of the world."
The publication of these sentiments may be supposed to have produced an
extensive effect. For _The Moral Philosophy_ was adopted early by some
of the colleges in our universities into the system of their education.
It soon found its way also into most of the private libraries of the
kingdom; and it was, besides, generally read and approved. Dr. Paley,
therefore, must be considered, as having been a considerable coadjutor
in interesting the mind of the public in favour of the oppressed
Africans.
In the year 1783, we find Mr. Sharp coming again into notice. We find
him at this time taking a part in a cause, the knowledge of which, in
proportion as it was disseminated, produced an earnest desire among all
disinterested persons for the abolition of the Slave Trade.
In this year, certain underwriters desired to be heard against Gregson
and others of Liverpool, in the case of the ship Zong, Captain
Collingwood, alleging that the captain and officers of the said vessel
threw overboard one hundred and thirty-two slaves alive into the seas in
order to defraud them, by claiming the value of the said slaves, as if
they had been lost in a natural way. In the course of the trial which
afterwards came on, it appeared, that the slaves on board the Zong were
very sickly; that sixty of them had already died; and several were ill
and likely to die, when the captain proposed to James Kelsall, the mate,
and others, to throw several of them overboard, stating, "that if they
died a natural death, the loss would fall upon the owners of the ship;
but that if they were thrown into the sea, it would fall upon the
underwriters." He selected, accordingly, one hundred and thirty-two of
the most sickly of the slaves. Fifty-four of these were immediately
thrown overboard, and forty-two were made to be partakers of their fate
on the succeeding day. In the course of three days afterwards the
remaining twenty-six were brought upon deck to complete the number of
victims. The first sixteen submitted to be thrown into the sea; but the
rest, with a noble resolution, would not suffer the officers to touch
them, but leaped after their companions and shared their fate.
The plea which was set up in behalf of this atrocious and unparalleled
act of wickedness was, that the captain discovered, when he made the
proposal, that he had only two hundred gallons of water on board, and
that he had missed his port. It was proved, however, in answer to this,
that no one had been put upon short allowance; and that, as if
Providence had determined to afford an unequivocal proof of the guilt, a
shower of rain fell and continued for three days immediately after the
second lot of slaves had been destroyed, by means of which they might
have filled many of their vessels[A] with water, and thus have prevented
all necessity for the destruction of the third.
[Footnote A: It appeared that they filled six.]
Mr. Sharp was present at this trial, and procured the attendance of a
short-hand writer to take down the facts, which should come out in the
course of it. These he gave to the public afterwards. He communicated
them also, with a copy of the trial, to the Lords of the Admiralty, as
the guardians of justice upon the seas, and to the Duke of Portland, as
principal minister of state. No notice, however, was taken by any of
these, of the information which had been thus sent them.
But though nothing was done by the persons then in power, in consequence
of the murder of so many innocent individuals, yet the publication of an
account of it by Mr. Sharp, in the newspapers, made such an impression
upon others, that; new coadjutors rose up. For, soon after this, we find
Thomas Day entering the lists again as the champion of the injured
Africans. He had lived to see his poem of _The Dying Negro_, which had
been published in 1773, make a considerable impression. In 1776, he had
written a letter to a friend in America, who was the possessor of
slaves, to dissuade him by a number of arguments from holding such
property; and now, when the knowledge of the case of the ship Zong was
spreading, he published that letter under the title of Fragment of an
Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes.
In this same year, Dr. Porteus, Bishop of Chester, but now Bishop of
London, came forward as a new advocate for the natives of Africa. The
way in which he rendered them service, was by preaching a sermon in
their behalf, before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Of
the wide circulation of this sermon, I shall say something in another
place, but much more of the enlightened and pious author of it, who from
this time never failed to aid, at every opportunity, the cause which he
had so ably undertaken.
In the year 1784, Dr. GREGORY produced his _Essays, Historical and
Moral_. He took an opportunity of disseminating in these a
circumstantial knowledge of the Slave Trade, and an equal abhorrence of
it at the same time. He explained the manner of procuring slaves in
Africa; the treatment of them on the passage, (in which he mentioned the
case of the ship Zong) and the wicked and cruel treatment of them in the
colonies. He recited and refuted also the various arguments adduced in
defence of the trade. He showed that it was destructive to our seamen.
He produced many weighty arguments also against the slavery itself. He
proposed clauses for an Act of Parliament for the abolition of both;
showing the good both to England and her colonies from such a measure,
and that a trade might be substituted in Africa, in various articles,
for that which he proposed to suppress. By means of the diffusion of
light like this, both of a moral and political nature; Dr. Gregory is
entitled to be ranked among the benefactors to the African race.
In the same year, Gilbert Wakefield preached a sermon at Richmond, in
Surrey, where, speaking of the people of this nation, he says, "Have we
been as renowned for a liberal communication of our religion and our
laws as for the possession of them! Have we navigated and conquered to
save, to civilize, and to instruct; or to oppress, to plunder, and to
destroy? Let India and Africa give the answer to these questions. The
one we have exhausted of her wealth and her inhabitants by violence, by
famine, and by every species of tyranny and murder. The children of the
other we daily carry from off the land of their nativity; like sheep to
the slaughter, to return no more. We tear them from every object of
their affection, or, sad alternative, drag them together to the horrors
of a mutual servitude! We keep them in the profoundest ignorance. We
gall them in a tenfold chain, with an unrelenting spirit of barbarity,
inconceivable to all but the spectators of it, unexampled among former
and other nations, and unrecorded even in the bloody registers of
heathen persecution. Such is the conduct of us enlightened Englishmen,
reformed Christians! Thus have we profited by our superior advantages,
by the favour of God, by the doctrines and example of a meek and lowly
Savior. Will not the blessings which we have abused loudly testify
against us? Will not the blood which we have shed cry from the ground
for vengeance upon our sins?"
In the same year, James Ramsay, vicar of Teston in Kent, became also an
able, zealous, and indefatigable patron of the African cause. This
gentleman had resided nineteen years in the island of St. Christopher,
where he had observed the treatment of the slaves, and had studied the
laws relating to them. On his return to England, yielding to his own
feelings of duty and the solicitations of some amiable friends, he
published a work, which he called _An Essay on the Treatment and
Conversion of the African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies_. After
having given an account of the relative situation of master and slave in
various parts of the world, he explained the low and degrading situation
which the Africans held in society in our own islands. He showed that
their importance would be increased; and the temporal interest of their
masters promoted, by giving them freedom, and by granting them other
privileges. He showed the great difficulty of instructing them in the
state in which they then were, and such as he himself had experienced,
both in his private and public attempts, and such as others had
experienced also. He stated the way in which private attempts of this
nature might probably be successful. He then answered all objections
against their capacities, as drawn from philosophy, form, anatomy, and
observation; and vindicated these from his own experience. And lastly,
he threw out ideas for the improvement of their condition, by an
establishment of a greater number of spiritual pastors among them; by
giving them more privileges than they then possessed; and by extending
towards them the benefits of a proper police. Mr. Ramsay had no other
motive for giving this work to the public, than that of humanity, of a
wish to serve this much-injured part of the human species. For he
compiled it at the hazard of forfeiting that friendship, which he had
contracted with many during his residence in the islands, and of
suffering much in his private property, as well as subjecting himself to
the ill-will and persecution of numerous individuals.
The publication of this book by one who professed to have been so long
resident in the islands, and to have been an eyewitness of facts,
produced, as may easily be supposed, a good deal of conversation, and
made a considerable impression, but particularly at this time, when a
storm was visibly gathering over the heads of the oppressors of the
African race. These circumstances occasioned one or two persons to
attempt to answer it, and these answers brought Mr. Ramsay into the
first controversy ever entered into on this subject, during which, as is
the case in most controversies, the cause of truth was spread.
The works which Mr. Ramsay wrote upon this subject were, the essay just
mentioned, in 1784. _An Inquiry_, also, _into the Effects of the
Abolition of the Slave Trade_, in 1784; _A Reply to Personal Invectives
and Objections_, in 1785; _A Letter to James Tobin, Esq._, in 1787;
_Objections to the Abolition of the Slave Trade, with Answers_; and _An
Examination of Harris's Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the
Slave Trade_, in 1788; and _An Address on the proposed Bill for the
Abolition of the Slave Trade_, in 1789. In short, from the time when he
first took up the cause, he was engaged in it till his death, which was
not a little accelerated by his exertions. He lived, however, to see
this cause in a train of parliamentary inquiry, and he died satisfied;
being convinced, as he often expressed, that the investigation must
inevitably lead to the total abolition of the Slave Trade.
In the next year, that is, in the year 1785, another advocate was seen
in Monsieur Necker, in his celebrated work on the _French Finances_,
which had just been translated into the English language from the
original work, in 1784. This virtuous statesman, after having given his
estimate of the population and revenue of the French West Indian
colonies, proceeds thus:--"The colonies of France contain, as we have
seen, near five hundred thousand slaves, and it is from the number of
these poor wretches that the inhabitants set a value on their
plantations. What a dreadful prospect! and how profound a subject for
reflection! Alas! how little are we both in our morality and our
principles! We preach up humanity, and yet go every year to bind in
chains twenty thousand natives of Africa! We call the Moors barbarians
and ruffians, because they attack the liberty of Europeans at the risk
of their own; yet these Europeans go, without danger, and as mere
speculators, to purchase slaves by gratifying the avarice of their
masters, and excite all those bloody scenes which are the usual
preliminaries of this traffic!" He goes on still further in the same
strain. He then shows the kind of power which has supported this
execrable trade. He throws out the idea of a general compact, by which
all the European nations should agree to abolish it; and he indulges the
pleasing hope that it may take place even in the present generation.
In the same year we find other coadjutors coming before our view, but
these in a line different from that in which any other belonging to this
class had yet moved. Mr. George White, a clergyman of the established
church, and Mr. John Chubb, suggested to Mr. William Tucket, the mayor
of Bridgewater, where they resided, and to others of that town, the
propriety of petitioning parliament for the abolition of the Slave
Trade. This petition was agreed upon, and, when drawn up, was as
follows:--
"The humble petition of the inhabitants of Bridgewater showeth,
"That your petitioners, reflecting with the deepest sensibility on the
deplorable condition of that part of the human species, the African
Negroes, who, by the most flagitious means, are reduced to slavery and
misery in the British colonies, beg leave to address this honourable
house in their behalf, and to express a just abhorrence of a system of
oppression, which no prospect of private gain, no consideration of
public advantage, no plea of political expediency, can sufficiently
justify or excuse.
"That, satisfied as your petitioners are that this inhuman system meets
with the general execration of mankind, they flatter themselves the day
is not far distant when it will be universally abolished. And they most
ardently hope to see a British parliament, by the extinction of that
sanguinary traffic, extend the blessings of liberty to millions beyond
this realm, held up to an enlightened world a glorious and merciful
example, and stand in the defence of the violated rights of human
nature."
This petition was presented by the Honourable Ann Poulet, and Alexander
Hood, Esq., (afterwards Lord Bridport,) who were the members for the
town of Bridgewater. It was ordered to lie on the table. The answer
which these gentlemen gave to their constituents relative to the
reception of it in the House of Commons is worthy of notice:--"There did
not appear," say they in their common letter, "the least disposition to
pay any further attention to it. Every one almost says that the
abolition of the Slave Trade must immediately throw the West Indian
islands into convulsions, and soon complete their utter ruin. Thus they
will not trust Providence for its protection for so pious an
undertaking."
In the year 1786, Captain J.S. Smith, of the royal navy, offered himself
to the notice of the public in behalf of the African cause. Mr. Ramsay,
as I have observed before, had become involved in a controversy in
consequence of his support of it. His opponents not only attacked his
reputation, but had the effrontery to deny his facts. This circumstance
occasioned Captain Smith to come forward. He wrote a letter to his
friend Mr. Hill, in which he stated that he had seen those things, while
in the West Indies, which Mr. Ramsay had asserted to exist, but which
had been so boldly denied. He gave, also, permission to Mr. Hill to
publish this letter. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on Captain
Smith, for thus standing forth in a noble cause, and in behalf of an
injured character.
The last of the necessary forerunners and coadjutors of this class, whom
I am to mention, was our much-admired poet, Cowper; and a great
coadjutor he was, when we consider what value was put upon his
sentiments, and the extraordinary circulation of his works. There are
few persons who have not been properly impressed by the following
lines:--
My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report,
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man. The natural bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own, and having power
To inforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored
As human Nature's broadest, foulest blot,--
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is,--and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,--
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home--then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall[A].
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.
[Footnote A: Expressions used in the great trial, when Mr. Sharp
obtained the verdict in favour of Somerset.]