l medicine every wound."
In the year 1755, Dr. Hayter, bishop of Norwich, preached a sermon
before the _Society for the Propagation of the Gospel_, in which he bore
his testimony against the continuance of this trade.
Dyer, in his poem called _The Fleece_, expresses his sorrow on account
of this barbarous trade, and looks forward to a day of retributive
justice on account of the introduction of such an evil.
In the year 1760, a pamphlet appeared, entitled, _Two Dialogues on the
Man-trade_, by John Philmore. This name is supposed to be an assumed
one. The author, however, discovers himself to have been both an able
and a zealous advocate in favour of the African race.
Malachi Postlethwaite, in his _Universal Dictionary of Trade and
Commerce_, proposes a number of queries on the subject of the Slave
Trade. I have not room to insert them at full length, but I shall give
the following as the substance of some of them to the reader: "Whether
this commerce be not the cause of incessant wars among the
Africans--Whether the Africans, if it were abolished, might not become
as ingenious, as humane, as industrious, and as capable of arts,
manufactures, and trades, as even the bulk of Europeans--Whether, if it
were abolished, a much more profitable trade might not be substituted,
and this to the very centre of their extended country, instead of the
trifling portion which now subsists upon their coasts--And whether the
great hindrance to such a new and advantageous commerce has not wholly
proceeded from that unjust, inhuman, unchristianlike traffic, called the
Slave Trade, which is carried on by the Europeans." The public proposal
of these and other queries by a man of so great commercial knowledge as
Postlethwaite, and by one who was himself a member of the African
Committee, was of great service in exposing the impolicy as well as
immorality of the Slave Trade.
In the year 1761, Thomas Jeffery published an account of a part of North
America, in which he lays open the miserable state of the slaves in the
West Indies, both as to their clothing, their food, their labour, and
their punishments. But, without going into particulars, the general
account be gives of them is affecting: "It is impossible," he says, "for
a human heart to reflect upon the slavery of these dregs of mankind,
without in some measure feeling for their misery, which ends but with
their lives--nothing can be more wretched than the condition of this
peop
|