It has been justly remarked, “that all who read may become enlightened;” for readers, insensibly imbibing the sentiments of others, and having their own latent sensibilities called forth, contract, progressively, virtuous inclinations and habits; and thereby become fitted to unite with their fellow-beings, in the removal or amelioration of any of the evils of life. With a full conviction of this, I have attempted, and now offer to my young readers, the present little work. To the rising generation, I am told, the great question of the slave-trade is little known; the abolition of it, by our legislature, having taken place either before many of them existed, or at too early a period of their lives to excite any interest. Present circumstances, however, in reference to the subject, ensure for it an intense interest, in every heart feeling the blessing of freedom and all the sweet charities of home; blessings which it is our care to dispose the youthful heart duly to appreciate, and hence to [vi]feel for those, deprived, by violence and crime, of these high privileges of man.

It is true, England has achieved the triumph of humanity, in effacing from her Christian character so dark a stain as a traffic in human beings; a commerce, “the history of which is written throughout in characters of blood.” Yet there are but too strong evidences that it is yet pursued to great and fearful extent by other nations, notwithstanding the solemn obligations they have entered into to suppress it; obligations “imposed on every Christian state, no less by the religion it professes, than by a regard to its national honour;” and notwithstanding it has been branded with infamy, at a solemn congress of the great Christian powers, as a crime of the deepest dye. Of this there has long been most abundant melancholy proof; yet, under its present contraband character, it has been attended by, if possible, unprecedented enormities and misery, as well as involving the base and cruel agents of it in the further crime of deliberate perjury, in order to conceal their nefarious employment.

Surely, then, no age can scarcely be too immature, in which to sow the seeds of abhorrence in the young breast, against this blood-stained, demoralizing [vii]commerce! Surely, no means, however trivial, should be neglected, to arouse the spirit of youth against it! It would be tedious, and, indeed, inconsistent with the brevity of this little work, to name the number of the great and the good who have protested against, and sacrificed their time and their treasure to abolish it. Suffice it to say, that an apparently trifling incident first aroused the virtuous energies of the ardent, persevering Clarkson, in the great cause;—that a view of the produce of Africa, and proofs of the ingenuity of Africans, kindled the fire of enthusiasm in the noble and comprehensive mind of a Pitt. Nor did the flame quiver or become dim while he was the pilot of the state, though he was not decreed to see the success of perseverance in the cause of justice and humanity.

Let me, therefore, be acquitted of presumption, when I express a hope, that, trifling as is the present work, yet, as the leading events it records are not the creations of fancy, but realities that have passed; that they have not been collected for effect, or uselessly to awaken the feelings; but having been actually presented in the pursuit of a disgraceful and cruel commerce, are now offered to the view of my young readers, [viii]in order to confirm the great truths, that cruelty and oppression encouraged, soon brutalize the nature of man; divesting him of every distinguishing trait which unites him with superior intelligences, and sinking him in the scale of being far below the ravening wolf and insatiate tiger; and that the slave-trade, more especially, never fails effectually to destroy all the sympathies of humanity, and so far to barbarize those who are concerned in it, as assuredly to cause civilized man to resume the ferocity of the savage whom he presumes to despise.

The Author. [x]