Part 16 (2/2)
Gracious G.o.d! how wicked, how beyond all example impious, must be that servitude, which cannot be carried on without the continual murder of so many and innocent persons! What punishment is not to be expected for such monstrous and unparalleled barbarities! For if the blood of one man, unjustly shed, cries with so loud a voice for the divine vengeance, how shall the cries and groans of an _hundred thousand_ men, _annually murdered_, ascend the celestial mansions, and bring down that punishment, which such enormities deserve! But do we mention punishment? Do we allude to that punishment, which shall be inflicted on men as individuals, in a future life? Do we allude to that awful day, which shall surely come, when the master shall behold his murdered negroe face to face? When a train of mutilated slaves shall be brought against him? When he shall stand confounded and abashed? Or, do we allude to that punishment, which may be inflicted on them here, as members of a wicked community? For as a body politick, if its members are ever so numerous, may be considered as an whole, acting of itself, and by itself, in all affairs in which it is concerned, so it is accountable, as such, for its conduct; and as these kinds of polities have only their existence here, so it is only in this world, that, as such, they can be punished.
”Now, whether we consider the crime, with respect to the individuals immediately concerned in this most barbarous and cruel traffick, or whether we consider it as patronized[115] and encouraged by the laws of the land, it presents to our view an equal degree of enormity. A crime, founded on a dreadful pre-eminence in wickedness,--a crime, which being both of individuals and the nation, must sometime draw down upon us the heaviest judgment of Almighty G.o.d, who made of one blood all the sons of men, and who gave to all equally a natural right to liberty; and who, ruling all the kingdoms of the earth with equal providential justice, cannot suffer such deliberate, such monstrous iniquity, to pa.s.s long unpunished[116].”
But alas! he seems already to have interfered on the occasion! The violent[117] and supernatural agitations of all the elements, which, for a series of years, have prevailed in those European settlements, where the unfortunate _Africans_ are retained in a state of slavery, and which have brought unspeakable calamities on the inhabitants, and publick losses on the states to which they severally belong, are so many awful visitations of G.o.d for this inhuman violation of his laws. And it is not perhaps unworthy of remark, that as the subjects of Great-Britain have two thirds of this impious commerce in their own hands, so they have suffered[118] in the same proportion, or more severely than the rest.
How far these misfortunes may appear to be acts of providence, and to create an alarm to those who have been accustomed to refer every effect to its apparent cause; who have been habituated to stop there, and to overlook the finger of G.o.d; because it is slightly covered under the veil of secondary laws, we will not pretend to determine? but this we will a.s.sert with confidence, that the _Europeans_ have richly deserved them all; that the fear of sympathy, which can hardly be restrained on other melancholy occasions, seems to forget to flow at the relation of these; and that we can never, with any shadow of justice, with prosperity to the undertakers of those, whose success must be at the expence of the happiness of millions of their fellow-creatures.
But this is sufficient. For if liberty is only an advent.i.tious right; if men are by no means superiour to brutes; if every social duty is a curse; if cruelty is highly to be esteemed; if murder is strictly honourable, and Christianity is a lye; then it is evident, that the _African_ slavery may be pursued, without either the remorse of conscience, or the imputation of a crime. But if the contrary of this is true, which reason must immediately evince, it is evident that no custom established among men was ever more impious; since it is contrary to _reason, justice, nature, the principles of law and government, the whole doctrine, in short, of natural religion, and the revealed voice of G.o.d_.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 111: Epist. to Philemon.]
[Footnote 112: The _African_ slave is of this description; and we could wish, in all our arguments on the present subject, to be understood as having spoken only of _proper slaves_. The slave who is condemned to the oar, to the fortifications, and other publick works, is in a different predicament. His liberty is not _appropriated_, and therefore none of those consequences can be justly drawn, which have been deduced in the present case.]
[Footnote 113: See the description of an African battle (Footnote 049).]
[Footnote 114: The lowest computation is 40,000, (Footnote 060).]
[Footnote 115: The legislature has squandered away more money in the prosecution of the slave trade, within twenty years, than in any other trade whatever, having granted from the year 1750, to the year 1770, the sum of 300,000 pounds.]
[Footnote 116: Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, by the Rev. Peter Peckard.]
[Footnote 117: The first noted earthquake at Jamaica, happened June the 7th 1692, when Port Royal was totally sunk. This was succeeded by one in the year 1697, and by another in the year 1722, from which time to the present, these regions of the globe seem to have been severely visited, but particularly during the last six or seven years. See a general account of the calamities, occasioned by the late tremendous hurricanes and earthquakes in the West-Indian islands, by Mr. Fowler.]
[Footnote 118: The many s.h.i.+ps of war belonging to the British navy, which were lost with all their crews in these dreadful hurricanes, will sufficiently prove the fact.]
FINISH.
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