Negroes, and like zeal for
the cause of religion, so manifestly trampled upon in the case of the
Negroes, which induced Richard Baxter, an eminent preacher amongst the
Dissenters in the last century, in his _christian directory_, to express
himself as follows, viz. "Do you mark how God hath followed you with
plagues; and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity
to the souls and bodies of men?"--"To go as pirates; and catch up poor
Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or
liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst
kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the
common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts
for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their
souls, are fitter to be called devils incarnate than christians: It is
an heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them.
Undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because by right
the man is his own, therefore no man else can have a just title to him."

CHAP. VIII.

Griffith Hughes's account of the number of Negroes in Barbadoes. Cannot
keep up their usual number without a yearly recruit. Excessive hardships
wear the Negroes down in a surprising manner. A servitude without a
condition, inconsistent with reason and natural justice. The general
usage the Negroes meet with in the West Indies. Inhuman calculations of
the strength and lives of the Negroes. Dreadful consequences which may
be expected from the cruelty exercised upon this oppressed part of
mankind.

We are told by Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy in Barbadoes, in his
natural history of that island, printed in the year 1750, "That there
were between sixty-five and seventy thousand Negroes, at that time, in
the island, tho' formerly they had a greater number. That in order to
keep up a necessary number, they were obliged to have a yearly supply
from Africa. That the hard labour, and often want of necessaries, which
these unhappy creatures are obliged to undergo, destroy a greater number
than are bred there." He adds, "That the capacities of their minds in
common affairs of life are but little inferior, if at all, to those of
the Europeans. If they fail in some arts, he says, it may be owing more
to their want of education, and the depression of their spirits by
slavery, than to any want of natural abilities." This destruction of the