Part 12 (1/2)

_From Thoughts on Imagination_.

”Now here, now there, the roving _fancy_ flies, Till some lov'd object strikes her wand'ring eyes, Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, And soft captivity involves the mind.

”_Imagination!_ who can sing thy force, Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through air to find the bright abode, Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring G.o.d, We on thy pinions can surpa.s.s the wind, And leave the rolling universe behind: From star to star the mental opticks rove, Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.

----&c. &c.”

Such is the poetry which we produce as a proof of our a.s.sertions. How far it has succeeded, the reader may by this time have determined in his own mind. We shall therefore only beg leave to accompany it with this observation, that if the auth.o.r.ess _was designed for slavery_, (as the argument must confess) the greater part of the inhabitants of Britain must lose their claim to freedom.

To this poetry we shall only add, as a farther proof of their abilities, the Prose compositions of Ignatius Sancho, who received some little education. His letters are too well known, to make any extract, or indeed any farther mention of him, necessary. If other examples of African genius should be required, suffice it to say, that they can be produced in abundance; and that if we were allowed to enumerate instances of African grat.i.tude, patience, fidelity, honour, as so many instances of good sense, and a sound understanding, we fear that thousands of the enlightened Europeans would have occasion to blush.

But an objection will be made here, that the two persons whom we have particularized by name, are prodigies, and that if we were to live for many years, we should scarcely meet with two other Africans of the same description. But we reply, that considering their situation as before described, two persons, above mediocrity in the literary way, are as many as can be expected within a certain period of years; and farther, that if these are prodigies, they are only such prodigies as every day would produce, if they had the same opportunities of acquiring knowledge as other people, and the same expectations in life to excite their genius. This has been constantly and solemnly a.s.serted by the pious Benezet[071], whom we have mentioned before, as having devoted a considerable part of his time to their instruction. This great man, for we cannot but mention him with veneration, had a better opportunity of knowing them than any person whatever, and he always uniformly declared, that he could never find a difference between their capacities and those of other people; that they were as capable of reasoning as any individual Europeans; that they were as capable of the highest intellectual attainments; in short, that their abilities were equal, and that they only wanted to be equally cultivated, to afford specimens of as fine productions.

Thus then does it appear from the testimony of this venerable man, whose authority is sufficient of itself to silence all objections against African capacity, and from the instances that have been produced, and the observations that have been made on the occasion, that if the minds of the Africans were unbroken by slavery; if they had the same expectations in life as other people, and the same opportunities of improvement, they would be equal; in all the various branches of science, to the Europeans, and that the argument that states them ”to be an inferiour link of the chain of nature, and designed for servitude,”

as far as it depends on the _inferiority of their capacities_, is wholly malevolent and false[072].

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 069: Phillis Wheatley, negro slave to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New-England.]

[Footnote 070: Lest it should be doubted whether these Poems are genuine, we shall transcribe the names of those, who signed a certificate of their authenticity.

His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Governor.

The Honourable Andrew Oliver, Lieutenant Governor.

The Hon. Thomas Hubbard The Hon. John Erving The Hon. James Pitts The Hon. Harrison Gray The Hon. James Bowdoin John Hanc.o.c.k, Esq.

Joseph Green, Esq.

Richard Carey, Esq.

The Rev. Cha. Chauncy, D.D.

The Rev. Mather Byles, D.D.

The Rev. Ed. Pemberton, D.D.

The Rev. Andrew Elliot, D.D.