The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition Part 4

[Footnote A: It is lamentable to think that the same Mr. Dunning, in a cause of this kind, which came on afterwards, took the opposite side of the question.]

After this one or two other trials came on, in which the oppressor was defeated, and several cases occurred in which poor slaves were liberated from the holds of vessels and other places of confinement, by the exertions of Mr. Sharp. One of these cases was singular. The vessels on board which a poor African had been dragged and confined, had reached the Downs, and had actually got under weigh for the West Indies: in two or three hours she would have been out of sight; but just at this critical moment the writ of _habeas corpus_ was carried on board. The officer who served it on the captain saw the miserable African chained to the mainmast, bathed in tears, and casting a last mournful look on the land of freedom, which was fast receding from his sight. The captain, on receiving the writ, became outrageous; but knowing the serious consequences of resisting the law of the land, he gave up his prisoner, whom the officer carried safe, but now crying for joy, to the sh.o.r.e.

But though the injured Africans, whose causes had been tried, escaped slavery, and though many who had been forcibly carried into dungeons, ready to be transported into the Colonies, had been delivered out of them, Mr. Sharp was not easy in his mind: not one of the cases had yet been pleaded on the broad ground, "Whether an African slave, coming into England, became free?" This great question had been hitherto studiously avoided; it was still, therefore, left in doubt. Mr. Sharp was almost daily acting as if it had been determined, and as if he had been following the known law of the land: he wished, therefore, that the next cause might be argued upon this principle. Lord Mansfield too, who had been bia.s.sed by the opinion of York and Talbot, began to waver in consequence of the different pleadings he had heard on this subject: he saw also no end of trials like these, till the law should be ascertained, and he was anxious for a decision on the same basis as Mr.

Sharp. In this situation the following case offered, which was agreed upon for the determination of this important question.

James Somerset, an African slave, had been brought to England by his master, Charles Stewart, in November 1769. Somerset in process of time left him. Stewart took an opportunity of seizing him, and had him conveyed on board the Ann and Mary, Captain Knowles, to be carried out of the kingdom and sold as a slave in Jamaica: the question was, "Whether a slave, by coming into England, became free?"

In order that time might be given for ascertaining the law fully on this head, the case was argued at three different sittings. First, in January, 1772; secondly, in February, 1772; and thirdly, in May, 1772.

And that no decision otherwise than what the law warranted might be given, the opinion of the judges was taken upon the pleadings. The great and glorious result of the trial was, "That as soon as ever any slave set his foot upon English territory, he became free."

Thus ended the great case of Somerset, which, having, been determined after so deliberate an investigation of the law, can never be reversed while the British Const.i.tution remains. The eloquence displayed in it by those who were engaged on the side of liberty, was perhaps never exceeded on any occasion; and the names of the counsellors Davy, Glynn, Hargrave, Mansfield, and Alleyne, ought always to be remembered with grat.i.tude by the friends of this great cause. For when we consider in how many crowded courts they pleaded, and the number of individuals in these, whose minds they enlightened, and whose hearts they interested in the subject, they are certainly to be put down as no small instruments in the promotion of it; but chiefly to him, under Divine Providence, are we to give the praise, who became the first great actor in it, who devoted his time, his talents, and his substance to this Christian undertaking, and by whose laborious researches the very pleaders themselves were instructed and benefited. By means of his almost incessant vigilance and attention, and unwearied efforts, the poor African ceased to be hunted in our streets as a beast of prey. Miserable as the roof might be, under which he slept, he slept in security. He walked by the side of the stately s.h.i.+p, and he feared no dungeon in her hold. Nor ought we, as Englishmen, to be less grateful to this distinguished individual than the African ought to be upon this occasion. To him we owe it, that we no longer see our public papers polluted by hateful advertis.e.m.e.nts of the sale of the human species, or that we are no longer distressed by the perusal of impious rewards for bringing back the poor and the helpless into slavery, or that we are prohibited the disgusting spectacle of seeing man bought by his fellow-man. To him, in short, we owe this restoration of the beauty of our const.i.tution--this prevention of the continuance of our national disgrace.

I shall say but little more of Mr. Sharp at present, than that he felt it his duty, immediately after the trial, to write to Lord North, then princ.i.p.al minister of state, warning him in the most earnest manner, to abolish immediately both the trade and the slavery of the human species in all the British dominions, as utterly irreconcileable with the principles of the British const.i.tution, and the established religion of the land.

Among other coadjutors, whom the cruel and wicked practices which have now been so amply detailed brought forward, was a worthy clergyman, whose name I have not yet been able to learn. He endeavoured to interest the public feeling in behalf of the injured Africans, by writing an epilogue to the _Padlock_, in which Mungo appeared as a black servant.

This epilogue is so appropriate to the case, that I cannot but give it to the reader. Mungo enters, and thus addresses the audience:--

Thank you, my ma.s.sas! have you laugh your fill?

Then let me speak, nor take that freedom ill.

E'en from _my_ tongue some heart-felt truths may fall, And outraged Nature claims the care of all.

My tale in _any_ place would force a tear, But calls for stronger, deeper feelings here; For whilst I tread the free-born British land, Whilst now before me crowded Britons stand,-- Vain, vain that glorious privilege to me, I am a slave, where all things else are free.

Yet was I born, as you are, no man's slave, An heir to all that liberal Nature gave; My mind can reason, and my limbs can move The same as yours; like yours my heart can love; Alike my body food and sleep sustain; And e'en like yours--feels pleasure, want, and pain.

One sun rolls o'er us, common skies surround; One globe supports us, and one grave must bound.

Why then am I devoid of all to live That manly comforts to a man can give?

To live--untaught religion's soothing balm, Or life's choice arts; to live--unknown the calm, Of soft domestic ease; those sweets of life, The duteous offspring, and th' endearing wife?

To live--to property and rights unknown, Not e'en the common benefits my own!

No arm to guard me from Oppression's rod, My will subservient to a tyrant's nod!

No gentle hand, when life is in decay, To soothe my pains, and charm my cares away; But helpless left to quit the horrid stage, Hara.s.sed in youth, and desolate in age!

But I was born in Afric's tawny strand, And you in fair Britannia's fairer land; Comes freedom, then, from colour?--Blush with shame!

And let strong Nature's crimson mark your blame.

I speak to Britons.--Britons--then behold A man by, Britons _snared_, and _seized_, and _sold!_ And yet no British statute d.a.m.ns the deed, Nor do the more than murderous villains bleed.

O sons of Freedom! equalize your laws, Be all consistent, plead the negro's cause; That all the nations in your code may see The British negro, like the Briton, free.

But, should he supplicate your laws in vain, To break, for ever, this disgraceful chain, At least, let gentle usage so abate The galling terrors of its pa.s.sing state, That he may share kind Heaven's all social plan; For, though no Briton, Mungo is--a man.

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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 att.i.tude 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:

To you this unpolluted blood I pour, To you that spirit, which ye gave, restore.

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 ent.i.tled _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 Abbe 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 professors[A], all of whom bore their public testimony against the continuance of the cruel trade.

[Footnote 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 Abbe 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 a.s.sa.s.sins; 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 ent.i.tle 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 t.i.tle. It may be presumed, therefore, that this t.i.tle is not always, if it be ever, founded in any of the causes above a.s.signed.

"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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p-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 pa.s.sions which attend it are no more, there may succeed, perhaps, a season for reflecting, whether a legislature, which had so long lent its a.s.sistance to the support of an inst.i.tution 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.