The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition Part 3

Neither was Richard Savage forgetful in his poems of the _Injured Africans_: he warns their oppressors of a day of retribution for their barbarous conduct. Having personified Public Spirit, he makes her speak on the subject in the following manner:--

Let by my specious name no tyrants rise, And cry, while they enslave, they civilize!

Know, Liberty and I are still the same Congenial--ever mingling flame with flame!

Why must I Afric's sable children see Vended for slaves, though born by nature free, The nameless tortures cruel minds invent Those to subject whom Nature equal meant?

If these you dare (although unjust success Empowers you now unpunished, to oppress), Revolving empire you and yours may doom-- (Rome all subdu'd--yet Vandals vanquish'd Rome) Yes--Empire may revolt--give them the day, And yoke may yoke, and blood may blood repay.

Wallis, in his _System of the Laws of Scotland_, maintains, that "neither men nor governments have a right to sell those of their own species. Men and their liberty are neither purchaseable nor saleable."

And, after arguing the case, he says, "This is the law of nature, which is obligatory on all men, at all times, and in all places.--Would not any of us, who should be s.n.a.t.c.hed by pirates from his native land, think himself cruelly abused, and at all times ent.i.tled to be free? Have not these unfortunate Africans, who meet with the same cruel fate, the same right? Are they not men as well as we? And have they not the same sensibility? Let us not, therefore, defend or support an usage, which is contrary to all the laws of humanity."

In the year 1750, the reverend Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy, in Barbados, published his Natural History of that island. He took an opportunity, in the course of it, of laying open to the world the miserable situation of the poor Africans, and the waste of them by hard labour and other cruel means, and he had the generosity to vindicate their capacities from the charge, which they who held them in bondage brought against them, as a justification of their own wickedness in continuing to deprive them of the rights of men.

Edmund Burke, in his account of the European settlements, (for this work is usually attributed to him,) complains "that the Negroes in our colonies endure a slavery more complete, and attended with far worse circ.u.mstances, than what any people in their condition suffer, in any other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time.

Proofs of this are not wanting. The prodigious waste, which we experience in this unhappy part of our species, is a full and melancholy evidence of this truth." And he goes on to advise the planters, for the sake of their own interest, to behave like good men, good masters, and good Christians, and to impose less labour upon their slaves, and to give them recreation on some of the grand festivals, and to instruct them in religion, as certain preventives of their decrease.

An anonymous author of a pamphlet, ent.i.tled, _An Essay in Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America_, seems to have come forward next.

Speaking of slavery there, he says, "It is shocking to humanity, violative of every generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the Christian religion.--There cannot be a more dangerous maxim than that necessity is a plea for injustice, for who shall fix the degree of this necessity? What villain so atrocious, who may not urge this excuse, or, as Milton has happily expressed it,

And with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excuse his devilish deed?

"That our colonies," he continues, "want people, is a very weak argument for so inhuman a violation of justice.--Shall a civilized, a Christian nation encourage slavery, because the barbarous, savage, lawless African hath done it? To what end do we profess a religion whose dictates we so flagrantly violate? Wherefore have we that pattern of goodness and humanity, if we refuse to follow it? How long shall we continue a practice which policy rejects, justice condemns, and piety revolts at?"

The poet Shenstone, who comes next in order, seems to have written an elegy on purpose to stigmatize this trade. Of this elegy I shall copy only the following parts:--

See the poor native quit the Libyan sh.o.r.es, Ah! not in love's delightful fetters bound!

No radiant smile his dying peace restores, No love, nor fame, nor friends.h.i.+p, heals his wound.

Let vacant bards display their boasted woes; Shall I the mockery of grief display?

No; let the muse his piercing pangs disclose, Who bleeds and weeps his sum of life away!

On the wild heath in mournful guise he stood, Ere the shrill boatswain gave the hated sign; He dropt a tear unseen into the flood, He stole one secret moment to repine--

"Why am I ravish'd from my native strand?

What savage race protects this impious gain?

Shall foreign plagues infest this teeming land, And more than sea-born monsters plough the main?

Here the dire locusts' horrid swarms prevail; Here the blue asps with livid poison swell; Here the dry dipsa writhes his sinuous mail; Can we not here secure from envy dwell?

When the grim lion urged his cruel chase, When the stern panther sought his midnight prey; What fate reserved me for this Christian race?

O race more polished, more severe than they!

Yet sh.o.r.es there are, bless'd sh.o.r.es for us remain, And favour'd isles, with golden fruitage crown'd, Where tufted flow'rets paint the verdant plain, And every breeze shall 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, ent.i.tled, _Two Dialogues on the Man-trade_, by John Philmore. This name is supposed to be an a.s.sumed 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 subst.i.tuted, 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 people."

Sterne, in his account of the Negro girl in his _Life of Tristram Shandy_, took decidedly the part of the oppressed Africans. The pathetic, witty, and sentimental manner, in which he handled this subject, occasioned many to remember it, and procured a certain portion of feeling in their favour.

Rousseau contributed not a little in his day to the same end.

Bishop Warburton, preached a sermon in the year 1766, before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in which he took up the cause of the miserable Africans, and in which he severely reprobated their oppressors. The language in this sermon is so striking, that I shall make an extract from it. "From the free savages," says he, "I now come to the savages in bonds. By these I mean the vast mult.i.tudes yearly stolen from the opposite continent, and sacrificed by the colonists to their great idol, the G.o.d of gain. But what then say these sincere wors.h.i.+ppers of Mammon? They are our own property which we offer up,--Gracious G.o.d! to talk, as of herds of cattle, of property in rational creatures, creatures endued with all our faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of colour, our brethren both by nature and grace, shocks all the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of common sense? But, alas! what is there, in the infinite abuses of society, which does not shock them! Yet nothing is more certain in itself and apparent to all, than that the infamous traffic for slaves directly infringes both divine and human law. Nature created man free, and grace invites him to a.s.sert his freedom.

"In excuse of this violation it hath been pretended, that though, indeed, these miserable outcasts of humanity be torn from their homes and native country by fraud and violence, yet they thereby become the happier, and their condition the more eligible. But who are you, who pretend to judge of another man's happiness; that state which each man under the guidance of his Maker forms for himself, and not one man for another? To know what const.i.tutes mine or your happiness is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and cast us in so various and different moulds. Did your slaves ever complain to you of their unhappiness amidst their native woods and deserts? or rather let me ask, did they ever cease complaining of their condition under you their lordly masters, where they see, indeed, the accommodations of civil life, but see them all pa.s.s to others, themselves unbenefited by them?

Be so gracious then, ye petty tyrants over human freedom, to let your slaves judge for themselves, what it is which makes their own happiness, and then see whether they do not place it in the return to their own country, rather than in the contemplation of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a part; a return so pa.s.sionately longed for, that, despairing of happiness here, that is, of escaping the chains of their cruel task-masters, they console themselves with feigning it to be the gracious reward of heaven in their future state."

About this time certain cruel and wicked practices, which must now be mentioned, had arrived at such a height, and had become so frequent in the metropolis, as to produce of themselves other coadjutors to the cause.

Before the year 1700, planters, merchants, and others, resident in the West Indies, but coming to England, were accustomed to bring with them certain slaves to act as servants with them during their stay. The latter, seeing the freedom and the happiness of servants in this country, and considering what would be their own hard fate on their return to the islands, frequently absconded. Their masters of course made search after them, and often had them seized and carried away by force. It was, however, thrown out by many on these occasions, that the English laws did not sanction such proceedings, for that all persons who were baptized became free. The consequence of this was, that most of the slaves, who came over with their masters, prevailed upon some pious clergyman to baptize them. They took of course G.o.dfathers of such citizens as had the generosity to espouse their cause. When they were seized they usually sent to these, if they had an opportunity, for their protection. And in the result, their G.o.dfathers, maintaining that they had been baptized, and that they were free on this account as well as by the general tenour of the law of England, dared those who had taken possession of them to send them out of the kingdom.

The planters, merchants, and others, being thus circ.u.mstanced, knew not what to do. They were afraid of taking their slaves away by force, and they were equally afraid of bringing any of the cases before a public court. In this dilemma, in 1729, they applied to York and Talbot, the attorney and solicitor-general for the time being, and obtained the following strange opinion from them:--"We are of opinion, that a slave by coming from the West Indies into Great Britain or Ireland, either with or without his master, does not become free, and that his master's right and property in him is not thereby determined or varied, and that baptism doth not bestow freedom on him, nor make any alteration in his temporal condition in these kingdoms. We are also of opinion, that the master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations."

This cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year 1729. The planters, merchants, and others, gave it of course all the publicity in their power. And the consequences were as might easily have been apprehended. In a little time slaves absconding were advertised in the London papers as runaways, and rewards offered for the apprehension of them, in the same brutal manner as we find them advertised in the land of slavery. They were advertised also, in the same papers, to be sold by auction, sometimes by themselves, and at others with horses, chaises, and harness? They were seized also by their masters, or by persons employed by them, in the very streets, and dragged from thence to the s.h.i.+ps; and so unprotected now were these poor slaves, that persons in nowise concerned with them began to inst.i.tute a trade in their persons, making agreements with captains of s.h.i.+ps going to the West Indies to put them on board at a certain price. This last instance shows how far human nature is capable of going, and is an answer to those persons who have denied that kidnapping in Africa was a source of supplying the Slave Trade. It shows, as all history does from the time of Joseph, that where there is a market for the persons of human beings, all kinds of enormities will be practised to obtain them.

These circ.u.mstances then, as I observed before, did not fail of producing new coadjutors in the cause. And first they produced that able and indefatigable advocate, Mr. Granville Sharp. This gentleman is to be distinguished from those who preceded him by this particular, that, whereas these were only writers, he was both a writer and an actor in the cause. In fact, he was the first labourer in it in England. By the words "actor" and "labourer," I mean that he determined upon a plan of action in behalf of the oppressed Africans, to the accomplishment of which he devoted a considerable portion of his time, talents, and substance. What Mr. Sharp has done to merit the t.i.tle of coadjutor in this high sense, I shall now explain. The following is a short history of the beginning and of the course of his labours:--

In the year 1765, Mr. David Lisle had brought over from Barbados Jonathan Strong, an African slave, as his servant. He used the latter in a barbarous manner at his lodgings in Wapping, but particularly by beating him over the head with a pistol, which occasioned his head to swell. When the swelling went down, a disorder fell into his eyes, which threatened the loss of them. To this an ague and fever succeeded, and a lameness in both his legs.

Jonathan Strong, having been brought into this deplorable situation, and being therefore wholly useless, was left by his master to go whither he pleased. He applied accordingly to Mr. William Sharp, the surgeon, for his advice, as to one who gave up a portion of his time to the healing of the diseases of the poor. It was here that Mr. Granville Sharp, the brother of the former, saw him. Suffice it to say, that in process of time he was cured. During this time Mr. Granville Sharp, pitying his hard case, supplied him with money, and he afterwards got him a situation in the family of Mr. Brown, an apothecary, to carry out medicines.

In this new situation, when Strong had become healthy and robust in his appearance, his master happened to see him. The latter immediately formed the design of possessing him again. According, when he had found out his residence, he procured John Ross, keeper of the Poultry-counter, and William Miller, an officer under the Lord Mayor, to kidnap him. This was done by sending for him to a public-house in Fenchurch-street, and then seizing him. By these he was conveyed, without any warrant, to the Poultry-counter, where he was sold by his master, to John Kerr, for thirty pounds.

Strong, in this situation, sent, as was usual, to his G.o.dfathers, John London and Stephen Nail, for their protections. They went, but were refused admittance to him. At length he sent for Mr. Granville Sharp: the latter went, but they still refused access to the prisoner. He insisted, however, upon seeing him, and charged the keeper of the prison at his peril to deliver him up, till he had been carried before a magistrate.

Mr. Sharp, immediately upon this, waited upon Sir Robert Kite, the then lord mayor, and entreated him to send for Strong and to hear his case. A day was accordingly appointed. Mr. Sharp attended, and also William McBean, a notary public, and David Laird, captain of the s.h.i.+p Thames, which was to have conveyed Strong to Jamaica, in behalf of the purchaser, John Kerr. A long conversation ensued, in which the opinion of York and Talbot was quoted. Mr. Sharp made his observations. Certain lawyers who were present seemed to be staggered at the case, but inclined rather to recommit the prisoner: the lord mayor, however, discharged Strong, as he had been taken up without a warrant.

As soon as this determination was made known, the parties began to move off. Captain Laird, however, who kept close to Strong, laid hold of him before he had quitted the room, and said aloud, "Then I now seize him as my slave." Upon this Mr. Sharp put his hand upon Laird's shoulder, and p.r.o.nounced these words: "I charge you, in the name of the king, with an a.s.sault upon the person of Jonathan Strong, and all these are my witnesses." Laird was greatly intimidated by this charge, made in the presence of the lord mayor and others, and, fearing a prosecution, let his prisoner go, leaving him to be conveyed away by Mr. Sharp.

Mr. Sharp having been greatly affected by this case, and foreseeing how much he might be engaged in others of a similar nature, thought it time that the law of the land should be known upon this subject: he applied, therefore, to Dr. Blackstone, afterwards Judge Blackstone, for his opinion upon it. He was, however, not satisfied with it when he received it; nor could he obtain any satisfactory answer from several other lawyers, to whom he afterwards applied. The truth is that the opinion of York and Talbot, which had been made public and acted upon by the planters, merchants, and others, was considered of high authority, and scarcely any one dared to question the legality of it. In this situation Mr. Sharp saw no means of help but in his own industry, and he determined immediately to give up two or three years to the study of the English law, that he might the better advocate the cause of these miserable people. The result of these studies was the publication of a book in the year 1769, which he called, _A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery in England_. In this work he refuted, in the clearest manner, the opinion of York and Talbot: he produced against it the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice Holt, who, many years before, had determined that every slave coming into England became free: he attacked and refuted it again by a learned and laborious inquiry into all the principles of Villenage. He refuted it again by showing it to be an axiom in the British const.i.tution, "That every man in England was free to sue for and defend his rights, and that force could not be used without a legal process," leaving it to the judges to determine whether an African was a man. He attacked also the opinion of Judge Blackstone, and showed where his error lay. This valuable book, containing these and other kinds of arguments on the subject, he distributed, but particularly among the lawyers, giving them an opportunity of refuting or acknowledging the doctrines it contained.

While Mr. Sharp was engaged in this work, another case offered, in which he took a part: this was in the year 1768. Hylas, an African slave, prosecuted a person of the name of Newton for having kidnapped his wife, and sent her to the West Indies. The result of the trial was, that damages to the amount of a s.h.i.+lling were given, and the defendant was bound to bring back the woman, either by the first s.h.i.+p, or in six months from this decision of the court.

But soon after the work just mentioned was out, and when Mr. Sharp was better prepared, a third case occurred: this happened in the year 1770.

Robert Stapylton, who lived at Chelsea, in conjunction with John Malony and Edward Armstrong, two watermen, seized the person of Thomas Lewis, an African slave, in a dark night, and dragged him to a boat lying in the Thames; they then gagged him and tied him with a cord, and rowed him down to a s.h.i.+p, and put him on board to be sold as a slave in Jamaica.

This base action took place near the garden of Mrs. Banks, the mother of the late Sir Joseph Banks. Lewis, it appears, on being seized, screamed violently. The servants of Mrs. Banks, who heard his cries, ran to his a.s.sistance, but the boat was gone. On informing their mistress of what had happened, she sent for Mr. Sharp, who began now to be known as the friend of the helpless Africans, and professed her willingness to incur the expense of bringing the delinquents to justice. Mr. Sharp, with some difficulty, procured a _habeas corpus_, in consequence of which Lewis was brought from Gravesend just as the vessel was on the point of sailing. An action was then commenced against Stapylton, who defended himself on the plea, "That Lewis belonged to him as his slave." In the course of the trial, Mr. Dunning, who was counsel for Lewis, paid Mr.

Sharp a handsome compliment; for he held in his hand Mr. Sharp's book, on the _Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery in England_, while he was pleading; and in his address to the jury he spoke and acted thus:--"I shall submit to you," says Mr. Dunning, "what my ideas are upon such evidence, reserving to myself an opportunity of discussing it more particularly, and reserving to myself a right to insist upon a position, which I will maintain (and here he held up the book to the notice of those present,) in any place and in any court of the kingdom, that our laws admit of no such property[A]." The result of the trial was, that the jury p.r.o.nounced the plaintiff not to have been the property of the defendant, several of them crying out, "No property, no property."