Part 2 (2/2)

Of those, who compose the first cla.s.s, 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 G.o.dwyn, 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 t.i.tle 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 princ.i.p.al 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 fict.i.tious circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.d,” 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 G.o.d'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, pa.s.sionate, 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d, who is the G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 mult.i.tude 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 compa.s.sion in behalf of the poor African, while he censures the avarice and cruelty of his master:--

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees G.o.d 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 rus.h.i.+ng cuts the briny flood, Swift as the gale can bear the s.h.i.+p 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 Cras.h.i.+ng at once, he dyes the purple seas With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

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