the Indians of America, an
hundred and fifty years before, was equally operating about a century
past on the minds of some of the well disposed of that day; amongst
others this worthy clergyman, having been an eye witness of the
oppression and cruelty exercised upon the Negro and Indian slaves,
endeavoured to raise the attention of those, in whose power it might be
to procure them relief; amongst other matters, in his address to the
Archbishop, he remarks in substance, "That the people of the island of
Barbadoes were not content with exercising the greatest hardness and
barbarity upon the Negroes, in making the most of their labour, without
any regard to the calls of humanity, but that they had suffered such a
slight and undervaluement to prevail in their minds towards these their
oppressed fellow creatures, as to discourage any step being taken,
whereby they might be made acquainted with the christian religion. That
their conduct towards their slaves was such as gave him reason to
believe, that either they had suffered a spirit of infidelity, a spirit
quite contrary to the nature of the gospel, to prevail in them, or that
it must be their established opinion that the Negroes had no more souls
than beasts; that hence they concluded them to be neither susceptible of
religious impressions, nor fit objects for the redeeming grace of God to
operate upon. That under this persuasion, and from a disposition of
cruelty, they treated them with far less humanity than they did their
cattle; for, says he, they do not starve their horses, which they expect
should both carry and credit them on the road; nor pinch the cow, by
whose milk they are sustained; which yet, to their eternal shame, is too
frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour
their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet,
but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death
(which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious)
but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to
death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this
prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious checks and
frowns he frequently met with, when using innocent arguments and
persuasions, in the way of his duty as a minister of the gospel, to
labour for the convincement and conversion of the Negroes; being
repeatedly told, with spiteful scoffings, (even by some est