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:
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 professorsA, all of whom bore their public testimony against the continuance of the cruel trade.
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 vesselsA with water, and thus have prevented all necessity for the destruction of the third.
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:—
A: Expressions used in the great trial, when Mr. Sharp obtained the verdict in favour of Somerset.
—Second class of forerunners and coadjutors, up to May 1787, consists of the Quakers in England.—Of George Fox and others.—Of the body of the Quakers assembled at the yearly meeting in 1727; and at various other times.—Quakers, as a body, petition Parliament; and circulate books on the subject.—Individuals among them become labourers and associate in behalf of the Africans; Dilwyn, Harrison, and others.—This the first association ever formed in England for the purpose.
The second class of the forerunners and coadjutors in this great cause, up to May 1787, will consist of the Quakers in England.
The first of this class was George Fox, the venerable founder of this benevolent society.
George Fox was contemporary with Richard Baxter, being born not long after him, and dying much about the same time. Like him, he left his testimony against this wicked trade. When he was in the island of Barbados, in the year 1671, he delivered himself to those who attended his religious meetings in the following manner:—
"Consider with yourselves," says he, "if you were in the same condition as the poor Africans are—who came strangers to you, and were sold to you as slaves—I say, if this should be the condition of you or yours, you would think it a hard measure; yea, and very great bondage and cruelty. And, therefore, consider seriously of this; and do you for them and to them, as you would willingly have them, or any others, do unto you, were you in the like slavish condition, and bring them to know the Lord Christ." And in his Journal, speaking of the advice which he gave his friends at Barbados, he says, "I desired also that they would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with their negroes, and not to use cruelty towards them, as the manner of some had been, and that after certain years of servitude they should make them free."
William Edmundson, who was a minister of the society, and, indeed, a fellow-traveller with George Fox, had the boldness in the same island to deliver his sentiments to the governor on the same subject. Having been brought before him and accused of making the Africans Christians, or, in other words, of making them rebel and destroy their owners, he replied, "That it was a good thing to bring them to the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus, and to believe in him who died for them and all men, and that this would keep them from rebelling, or cutting any person's throat; but if they did rebel and cut their throats, as the governor insinuated they would, it would be their own doing, in keeping them in ignorance and under oppression, in giving them liberty to be common with women like brutes, and, on the other hand, in starving them for want of meat and clothes convenient; thus, giving them liberty in that which God restrained, and restraining them in that which was meat and clothing."
I do not find any individual of this society moving in this cause, for some time after the death of George Fox and William Edmundson. The first circumstance of moment which I discover, is a resolution of the whole Society on the subject, at their yearly meeting, held in London in the year 1727. The resolution was contained in the following words:—"It is the sense of this meeting, that the importing of negroes from their native country and relations by Friends is not a commendable nor allowed practice, and is, therefore, censured by this meeting."
In the year 1758, the Quakers thought it their duty, as a body, to pass another resolution upon this subject. At this, time the nature of the trade beginning to be better known, we find them more animated upon it, as the following extract will show:—
"We fervently warn all in profession with us, that they carefully avoid being any way concerned in reaping the unrighteous profits, arising from the iniquitous practice of dealing in negro or other slaves; whereby, in the original purchase, one man selleth another, as he doth the beasts that perish, without any better pretension to a property in him than that of superior force; in direct violation of the Gospel rule, which teacheth all to do as they would be done by, and to do good to all; being the reverse of that covetous disposition, which furnisheth encouragement to those poor ignorant people to perpetuate their savage wars, in order to supply the demands of this most unnatural traffic, by which great numbers of mankind, free by nature, are subject to inextricable bondage, and which hath often been observed to fill their possessors with haughtiness, tyranny, luxury, and barbarity, corrupting the minds and debasing the morals of their children, to the unspeakable prejudice of religion and virtue, and the exclusion of that holy spirit of universal love, meekness, and charity, which is the unchangeable nature and the glory of true Christianity. We, therefore, can do no less, than, with the greatest earnestness, impress it upon Friends everywhere, that they endeavour to keep their hands clear of this unrighteous gain of oppression."
The Quakers hitherto, as appears by the two resolutions which have been quoted, did nothing more than seriously warn all those in religious profession with them against being concerned in this trade. But in three years afterwards, or at the yearly meeting in 1761, they came to a resolution, as we find by the following extract from their minutes, that any of their members haying a concern in it should be disowned:—"This meeting having reason to apprehend that divers under our name, are concerned in the unchristian traffic in negroes, doth recommend it earnestly to the care of Friends everywhere, to discourage, as much as in them lies, a practice so repugnant to our Christian profession; and to deal with all such as shall persevere in a conduct so reproachful to Christianity; and to disown them, if they desist not therefrom."
The yearly meeting of 1761, having thus agreed to exclude from membership such as should be found concerned in this trade, that of 1763 endeavoured to draw the cords, still tighter, by attaching criminality to those who should aid and abet the trade in any manner. By the minute, which was made on this occasion, I apprehend that no one belonging to the Society could furnish even materials for such voyages. "We renew our exhortation, that Friends everywhere be especially careful to keep their hands clear of giving encouragement in any shape to the Slave Trade, it being evidently destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, and visited by one divine light, in order to salvation; a traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the misery of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenour of the Gospel."
Some pleasing intelligence having been sent on this subject, by the Society in America to the Society in England, the yearly meeting of 1772 thought it their duty to notice it, and to keep their former resolutions alive by the following minute:—"It appears that the practice of holding negroes in oppressive and unnatural bondage hath been so successfully discouraged by Friends in some of the colonies, as to be considerably lessened. We cannot but approve of these salutary endeavours, and earnestly intreat that they may be continued, that through the favour of divine Providence a traffic, so unmerciful and unjust in its nature to a part of our own species made, equally with ourselves, for immortality, may come to be considered by all in its proper light, and be utterly abolished as a reproach to the Christian name."
I must beg leave to stop here for a moment, just to pay the Quakers a due tribute of respect for the proper estimation, in which they have uniformly held the miserable outcasts of society, who have been the subject of these minutes. What a contrast does it afford to the sentiments of many others concerning them! How have we been compelled to prove by a long chain of evidence, that they had the same feelings and capacities as ourselves! How many, professing themselves enlightened, even now view them as of a different species! But in the minutes which have been cited we have seen them uniformly represented, as persons "ransomed by one and the same Saviour," "as visited by one and the same light for salvation," and "as made equally for immortality as others." These practical views of mankind, as they are highly honourable to the members of this Society, so they afford a proof both of the reality and of the consistency of their religion.
But to return:—From this time, there appears to have been a growing desire in this benevolent society to step out of its ordinary course in behalf of this injured people. It had hitherto confined itself to the keeping of its own members unpolluted by any gain from their oppression. But it was now ready to make an appeal to others, and to bear a more public testimony in their favour. Accordingly, in the month of June, 1783, when a bill had been brought into the House of Commons for certain regulations to be made with respect to the African Trade, the society sent the following petition to that branch of the legislature:—
"Your petitioners, met in this their annual assembly, having solemnly considered the state of the enslaved negroes, conceive themselves engaged, in religious duty, to lay the suffering situation of that unhappy people before you, as a subject loudly calling for the humane interposition of the legislature,
"Your petitioners regret that a nation, professing the Christian faith, should so far counteract the principles of humanity and justice, as by the cruel treatment of this oppressed race to fill their minds with prejudices against the mild and beneficent doctrines of the gospel.
"Under the countenance of the laws of this country, many thousand of these our fellow-creatures, entitled to the natural rights of mankind, are held as personal property in cruel bondage; and your petitioners being informed that a Bill for the Regulation of the African Trade is now before the House, containing a clause which restrains the officers of the African Company from exporting negroes, your petitioners, deeply affected with a consideration of the rapine, oppression, and bloodshed, attending this traffic, humbly request that this restriction may be extended to all persons whomsoever, or that the House would grant such other relief in the premises as in its wisdom may seem meet."
This petition was presented by Sir Cecil Wray, who, on introducing it, spoke very respectfully of the society. He declared his hearty approbation of their application, and said he hoped he should see the day when not a slave would remain within the dominions of this realm. Lord North seconded the motion, saying he could have no objection to the petition, and that its object ought to recommend it to every humane breast; that it did credit to the most benevolent society in the world; but that, the session, being so far advanced, the subject, could not then be taken into consideration; and he regretted that the Slave Trade, against which the petition was so justly directed, was in a commercial view become necessary to almost every nation of Europe. The petition was then brought up and read, after which it was ordered to lie on the table. This was the first petition (being two years earlier than that from the inhabitants of Bridgewater), which was ever presented to parliament for the abolition of the Slave Trade.
But the society did not stop here; for having at the yearly meeting of 1783 particularly recommended the cause to a standing committee, appointed to act at intervals, called the Meeting for Sufferings, the latter in this same year resolved upon an address to the public, entitled, The Case of our Fellow-creatures, the oppressed Africans, respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of the Legislature of Great Britain, by the People called Quakers: in which they endeavoured, in the most pathetic manner, to make the reader acquainted with the cruel nature of this trade; and they ordered 2000 copies of it to be printed.
In the year 1784, they began the distribution of this case. The first copy was sent to the king through Lord Carmarthen, and the second and the third, through proper officers, to the queen and the Prince of Wales. Others were sent by a deputation of two members of the society to Mr. Pitt, as prime-minister; to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow; to Lord Gower, as president of the council; to Lords Carmarthen and Sidney, as secretaries of state; to Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield; to Lord Howe, as first lord of the Admiralty; and to C.F. Cornwall, Esq., as speaker of the House of Commons. Copies were sent also to every member of both houses of parliament.
The society, in the same year, anxious that the conduct of its members should be consistent with its public profession on this great subject, recommended it to the quarterly and monthly meetings to inquire through their respective districts, whether any, bearing its name, were in any way concerned in the traffic, and to deal with such, and to report the success of their labours in the ensuing year. Orders were also given for the reprinting and circulation of 10,000 other copies of The Case.
In the year 1785, the society interested itself again in a similar manner. For the Meeting for Sufferings, as representing it, recommended to the quarterly meetings to distribute a work, written by Anthony Benezet, in America, called A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short Representation of the calamitous State of the enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions. This book was accordingly forwarded to them for this purpose. On receiving it, they sent it among several public bodies, the regular and dissenting clergy, justices of the peace, and particularly among the great Schools of the kingdom, that the rising youth might acquire a knowledge, and at the same time a detestation, of this cruel traffic. In this latter base, a deputation of the society waited, upon the masters, to know if they would allow their scholars to receive it. The schools of Westminster, the Charter-house, St. Paul, Merchant-Taylors, Eton, Winchester, and Harrow, were among those visited. Several academies also were visited for this purpose.
But I must now take my leave of the Quakers as a public bodyA and go back to the year 1783, to record an event, which will be found of great importance in the present history, and in which only individuals belonging to the society were concerned. This event seems to have arisen naturally out of existing or past circumstances. For the society, as I have before stated, had sent a petition to parliament in this year, praying for the abolition, of the Slave Trade. It had also laid the foundation for a public distribution of the books as just mentioned, with a view of enlightening others on this great subject. The case of the ship Zong, which I have before had occasion to explain, had occurred this same year. A letter also had been presented, much about the same time, by Benjamin West, from Anthony Benezet, before mentioned, to our queen, in behalf of the injured Africans, which she had received graciously. These subjects occupied at this time the attention of many Quaker families, and among others, that of a few individuals, who were in close intimacy with each other. These, when they met together, frequently conversed upon them. They perceived, as facts came out in conversation, that there was a growing knowledge and hatred of the Slave Trade, and that the temper of the times was ripening towards its abolition. Hence a disposition manifested itself among these, to unite as labourers for the furtherance of so desirable an object. An union was at length proposed and approved of, and the following persons (placed in alphabetical order) came together to execute the offices growing out of it:—
A: The Quakers, as a public body, kept the subject alive at their yearly meeting in 1784, 1785, 1787, &c.
| WILLIAM DILLWYN, | THOMAS KNOWLES, M.D. |
| GEORGE HARRISON, | JOHN LLOYD, |
| SAMUEL HOARE, | JOSEPH WOODS. |
The first meeting was held on the seventh of July, 1783. At this "they assembled to consider what steps they should take for the relief and liberation of the negro slaves in the West Indies, and for the discouragement of the Slave Trade on the coast of Africa."
To promote this object; they conceived it necessary that the public mind should be enlightened respecting it. They had recourse; therefore, to the public papers, and they appointed their members in turn to write in these, and to see that their productions were inserted. They kept regular minutes for this purpose. It was not however known to the world that such an association existed.
It appears that they had several meetings in the course of this year. Before the close of it they had secured a place in the General Evening Post, in Lloyd's Evening Post, in the Norwich, Bath, York, Bristol, Sherborne, Liverpool, Newcastle, and other provincial papers, for such articles as they chose to send to them. These consisted principally of extracts from such authors, both in prose and verse, as they thought would most enlighten and interest the mind upon the subject of their institution.
In the year 1784 they pursued the same plan; but they began now to print books. The first was from a manuscript composed by Joseph Woods, one of the committee; It was entitled, Thoughts on the Slavery of the Negroes. This manuscript was well put together. It was a manly and yet feeling address in behalf of the oppressed Africans. It contained a sober and dispassionate appeal to the reason of all, without offending the prejudices of any. It was distributed at the expense of the association, and proved to be highly useful to the cause which it was intended to promote.
A communication having been made to the committee, that Dr. Porteus, then Bishop of Chester, had preached a sermon before the society for the propagation of the gospel, in behalf of the injured Africans, (which sermon was noticed in the last chapter,) Samuel Hoare was deputed to obtain permission to publish it. This led him to a correspondence with Mr. Ramsay before mentioned. The latter applied in consequence to the bishop, and obtained his consent. Thus this valuable sermon was also given to the world.
In the year 1785, the association continued their exertions as before; but I have no room to specify them. I may observe, however, that David Barclay, a grandson of the great apologist of that name, assisted at one of their meetings, and (what is singular) that he was in a few years afterwards unexpectedly called to a trial of his principles on this very subject. For he and his brother John became, in consequence of a debt due to them, possessed of a large grazing farm, or pen, in Jamaica, which had thirty-two slaves upon it. Convinced, however, that the retaining of their fellow-creatures in bondage was not only irreconcilable with the principles of Christianity, but subversive of the rights of human nature, they determined upon the emancipation of these. And theyA performed this generous office to the satisfaction of their minds, to the honour of their characters, to the benefit of the public, and to the happiness of the slaveB. I mention this anecdote, not only to gratify myself, by paying a proper respect to those generous persons who sacrificed their interest to principle, but also to show the sincerity of David Barclay, (who is now the only surviving brother,) as he actually put in practice what at one of these meetings he was desirous of recommending to others.
A: They engaged an agent to embark for Jamaica in 1796 to effect this business, and had the slaves conveyed to Philadelphia, where they were kindly received by the Society for improving the Condition of free Black people. Suitable situations were found for the adults, and the young ones were bound out apprentices to handicraft trades, and to receive school learning.
B: James Pemberton, of Philadelphia, made the following observation in a letter to a Friend in England:—"David Barclay's humane views towards the Blacks from Jamaica have been so far realized, that these objects of his concern enjoy their freedom with comfort to themselves, and are respectable in their characters, keeping up a friendly intercourse with each other, and avoiding to intermix with the common Blacks of this city, being sober in their conduct and industrious in their business."
Having now brought up the proceedings of this little association towards the year 1786, I shall take my leave of it, remarking, that it was the first ever formed in England for the promotion of the abolition of the Slave Trade. That Quakers have had this honour is unquestionable. Nor is it extraordinary that they should have taken the lead on this occasion, when we consider how advantageously they have been situated for so doing. For the Slave Trade, as we have not long ago seen, came within the discipline of the society in the year 1727. From thence it continued to be an object of it till 1783. In 1783 the society petitioned parliament, and in 1784 it distributed books to enlighten the public concerning it. Thus we see that every Quaker, born since the year 1727, was nourished as it were in a fixed hatred against it. He was taught, that any concern in it was a crime of the deepest dye. He was taught, that the bearing of his testimony against it was a test of unity with those of the same religious profession. The discipline of the Quakers was therefore a school for bringing them up as advocates for the abolition of this trade. To this it may be added, that the Quakers knew more about the trade and the slavery of the Africans, than any other religious body of men, who had not been in the land of their sufferings. For there had been a correspondence between the society in America and that in England on the subject, the contents of which must have been known to the members of each. American ministers also were frequently crossing the Atlantic on religious missions to England. These, when they travelled through various parts of our island, frequently related to the Quaker families in their way the cruelties they had seen and heard of in their own country. English ministers were also frequently going over to America on the same religious errand. These, on their return, seldom failed to communicate what they had learned or observed, but more particularly relative to the oppressed Africans, in their travels. The journals also of these, which gave occasional accounts of the sufferings of the slaves, were frequently published. Thus situated in point of knowledge, and brought up moreover from their youth in a detestation of the trade, the Quakers were ready to act whenever a favourable opportunity should present itself.