The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition Part 5

It soon found its way also into most of the private libraries of the kingdom; and it was, besides, generally read and approved. Dr. Paley, therefore, must be considered, as having been a considerable coadjutor in interesting the mind of the public in favour of the oppressed Africans.

In the year 1783, we find Mr. Sharp coming again into notice. We find him at this time taking a part in a cause, the knowledge of which, in proportion as it was disseminated, produced an earnest desire among all disinterested persons for the abolition of the Slave Trade.

In this year, certain underwriters desired to be heard against Gregson and others of Liverpool, in the case of the s.h.i.+p Zong, Captain Collingwood, alleging that the captain and officers of the said vessel threw overboard one hundred and thirty-two slaves alive into the seas in order to defraud them, by claiming the value of the said slaves, as if they had been lost in a natural way. In the course of the trial which afterwards came on, it appeared, that the slaves on board the Zong were very sickly; that sixty of them had already died; and several were ill and likely to die, when the captain proposed to James Kelsall, the mate, and others, to throw several of them overboard, stating, "that if they died a natural death, the loss would fall upon the owners of the s.h.i.+p; but that if they were thrown into the sea, it would fall upon the underwriters." He selected, accordingly, one hundred and thirty-two of the most sickly of the slaves. Fifty-four of these were immediately thrown overboard, and forty-two were made to be partakers of their fate on the succeeding day. In the course of three days afterwards the remaining twenty-six were brought upon deck to complete the number of victims. The first sixteen submitted to be thrown into the sea; but the rest, with a n.o.ble resolution, would not suffer the officers to touch them, but leaped after their companions and shared their fate.

The plea which was set up in behalf of this atrocious and unparalleled act of wickedness was, that the captain discovered, when he made the proposal, that he had only two hundred gallons of water on board, and that he had missed his port. It was proved, however, in answer to this, that no one had been put upon short allowance; and that, as if Providence had determined to afford an unequivocal proof of the guilt, a shower of rain fell and continued for three days immediately after the second lot of slaves had been destroyed, by means of which they might have filled many of their vessels[A] with water, and thus have prevented all necessity for the destruction of the third.

[Footnote A: It appeared that they filled six.]

Mr. Sharp was present at this trial, and procured the attendance of a short-hand writer to take down the facts, which should come out in the course of it. These he gave to the public afterwards. He communicated them also, with a copy of the trial, to the Lords of the Admiralty, as the guardians of justice upon the seas, and to the Duke of Portland, as princ.i.p.al minister of state. No notice, however, was taken by any of these, of the information which had been thus sent them.

But though nothing was done by the persons then in power, in consequence of the murder of so many innocent individuals, yet the publication of an account of it by Mr. Sharp, in the newspapers, made such an impression upon others, that; new coadjutors rose up. For, soon after this, we find Thomas Day entering the lists again as the champion of the injured Africans. He had lived to see his poem of _The Dying Negro_, which had been published in 1773, make a considerable impression. In 1776, he had written a letter to a friend in America, who was the possessor of slaves, to dissuade him by a number of arguments from holding such property; and now, when the knowledge of the case of the s.h.i.+p Zong was spreading, he published that letter under the t.i.tle of Fragment of an Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes.

In this same year, Dr. Porteus, Bishop of Chester, but now Bishop of London, came forward as a new advocate for the natives of Africa. The way in which he rendered them service, was by preaching a sermon in their behalf, before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Of the wide circulation of this sermon, I shall say something in another place, but much more of the enlightened and pious author of it, who from this time never failed to aid, at every opportunity, the cause which he had so ably undertaken.

In the year 1784, Dr. GREGORY produced his _Essays, Historical and Moral_. He took an opportunity of disseminating in these a circ.u.mstantial knowledge of the Slave Trade, and an equal abhorrence of it at the same time. He explained the manner of procuring slaves in Africa; the treatment of them on the pa.s.sage, (in which he mentioned the case of the s.h.i.+p Zong) and the wicked and cruel treatment of them in the colonies. He recited and refuted also the various arguments adduced in defence of the trade. He showed that it was destructive to our seamen.

He produced many weighty arguments also against the slavery itself. He proposed clauses for an Act of Parliament for the abolition of both; showing the good both to England and her colonies from such a measure, and that a trade might be subst.i.tuted in Africa, in various articles, for that which he proposed to suppress. By means of the diffusion of light like this, both of a moral and political nature; Dr. Gregory is ent.i.tled to be ranked among the benefactors to the African race.

In the same year, Gilbert Wakefield preached a sermon at Richmond, in Surrey, where, speaking of the people of this nation, he says, "Have we been as renowned for a liberal communication of our religion and our laws as for the possession of them! Have we navigated and conquered to save, to civilize, and to instruct; or to oppress, to plunder, and to destroy? Let India and Africa give the answer to these questions. The one we have exhausted of her wealth and her inhabitants by violence, by famine, and by every species of tyranny and murder. The children of the other we daily carry from off the land of their nativity; like sheep to the slaughter, to return no more. We tear them from every object of their affection, or, sad alternative, drag them together to the horrors of a mutual servitude! We keep them in the profoundest ignorance. We gall them in a tenfold chain, with an unrelenting spirit of barbarity, inconceivable to all but the spectators of it, unexampled among former and other nations, and unrecorded even in the b.l.o.o.d.y registers of heathen persecution. Such is the conduct of us enlightened Englishmen, reformed Christians! Thus have we profited by our superior advantages, by the favour of G.o.d, by the doctrines and example of a meek and lowly Savior. Will not the blessings which we have abused loudly testify against us? Will not the blood which we have shed cry from the ground for vengeance upon our sins?"

In the same year, James Ramsay, vicar of Teston in Kent, became also an able, zealous, and indefatigable patron of the African cause. This gentleman had resided nineteen years in the island of St. Christopher, where he had observed the treatment of the slaves, and had studied the laws relating to them. On his return to England, yielding to his own feelings of duty and the solicitations of some amiable friends, he published a work, which he called _An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of the African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies_. After having given an account of the relative situation of master and slave in various parts of the world, he explained the low and degrading situation which the Africans held in society in our own islands. He showed that their importance would be increased; and the temporal interest of their masters promoted, by giving them freedom, and by granting them other privileges. He showed the great difficulty of instructing them in the state in which they then were, and such as he himself had experienced, both in his private and public attempts, and such as others had experienced also. He stated the way in which private attempts of this nature might probably be successful. He then answered all objections against their capacities, as drawn from philosophy, form, anatomy, and observation; and vindicated these from his own experience. And lastly, he threw out ideas for the improvement of their condition, by an establishment of a greater number of spiritual pastors among them; by giving them more privileges than they then possessed; and by extending towards them the benefits of a proper police. Mr. Ramsay had no other motive for giving this work to the public, than that of humanity, of a wish to serve this much-injured part of the human species. For he compiled it at the hazard of forfeiting that friends.h.i.+p, which he had contracted with many during his residence in the islands, and of suffering much in his private property, as well as subjecting himself to the ill-will and persecution of numerous individuals.

The publication of this book by one who professed to have been so long resident in the islands, and to have been an eyewitness of facts, produced, as may easily be supposed, a good deal of conversation, and made a considerable impression, but particularly at this time, when a storm was visibly gathering over the heads of the oppressors of the African race. These circ.u.mstances occasioned one or two persons to attempt to answer it, and these answers brought Mr. Ramsay into the first controversy ever entered into on this subject, during which, as is the case in most controversies, the cause of truth was spread.

The works which Mr. Ramsay wrote upon this subject were, the essay just mentioned, in 1784. _An Inquiry_, also, _into the Effects of the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, in 1784; _A Reply to Personal Invectives and Objections_, in 1785; _A Letter to James Tobin, Esq._, in 1787; _Objections to the Abolition of the Slave Trade, with Answers_; and _An Examination of Harris's Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave Trade_, in 1788; and _An Address on the proposed Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, in 1789. In short, from the time when he first took up the cause, he was engaged in it till his death, which was not a little accelerated by his exertions. He lived, however, to see this cause in a train of parliamentary inquiry, and he died satisfied; being convinced, as he often expressed, that the investigation must inevitably lead to the total abolition of the Slave Trade.

In the next year, that is, in the year 1785, another advocate was seen in Monsieur Necker, in his celebrated work on the _French Finances_, which had just been translated into the English language from the original work, in 1784. This virtuous statesman, after having given his estimate of the population and revenue of the French West Indian colonies, proceeds thus:--"The colonies of France contain, as we have seen, near five hundred thousand slaves, and it is from the number of these poor wretches that the inhabitants set a value on their plantations. What a dreadful prospect! and how profound a subject for reflection! Alas! how little are we both in our morality and our principles! We preach up humanity, and yet go every year to bind in chains twenty thousand natives of Africa! We call the Moors barbarians and ruffians, because they attack the liberty of Europeans at the risk of their own; yet these Europeans go, without danger, and as mere speculators, to purchase slaves by gratifying the avarice of their masters, and excite all those b.l.o.o.d.y scenes which are the usual preliminaries of this traffic!" He goes on still further in the same strain. He then shows the kind of power which has supported this execrable trade. He throws out the idea of a general compact, by which all the European nations should agree to abolish it; and he indulges the pleasing hope that it may take place even in the present generation.

In the same year we find other coadjutors coming before our view, but these in a line different from that in which any other belonging to this cla.s.s had yet moved. Mr. George White, a clergyman of the established church, and Mr. John Chubb, suggested to Mr. William Tucket, the mayor of Bridgewater, where they resided, and to others of that town, the propriety of pet.i.tioning parliament for the abolition of the Slave Trade. This pet.i.tion was agreed upon, and, when drawn up, was as follows:--

"The humble pet.i.tion of the inhabitants of Bridgewater showeth,

"That your pet.i.tioners, reflecting with the deepest sensibility on the deplorable condition of that part of the human species, the African Negroes, who, by the most flagitious means, are reduced to slavery and misery in the British colonies, beg leave to address this honourable house in their behalf, and to express a just abhorrence of a system of oppression, which no prospect of private gain, no consideration of public advantage, no plea of political expediency, can sufficiently justify or excuse.

"That, satisfied as your pet.i.tioners are that this inhuman system meets with the general execration of mankind, they flatter themselves the day is not far distant when it will be universally abolished. And they most ardently hope to see a British parliament, by the extinction of that sanguinary traffic, extend the blessings of liberty to millions beyond this realm, held up to an enlightened world a glorious and merciful example, and stand in the defence of the violated rights of human nature."

This pet.i.tion was presented by the Honourable Ann Poulet, and Alexander Hood, Esq., (afterwards Lord Bridport,) who were the members for the town of Bridgewater. It was ordered to lie on the table. The answer which these gentlemen gave to their const.i.tuents relative to the reception of it in the House of Commons is worthy of notice:--"There did not appear," say they in their common letter, "the least disposition to pay any further attention to it. Every one almost says that the abolition of the Slave Trade must immediately throw the West Indian islands into convulsions, and soon complete their utter ruin. Thus they will not trust Providence for its protection for so pious an undertaking."

In the year 1786, Captain J.S. Smith, of the royal navy, offered himself to the notice of the public in behalf of the African cause. Mr. Ramsay, as I have observed before, had become involved in a controversy in consequence of his support of it. His opponents not only attacked his reputation, but had the effrontery to deny his facts. This circ.u.mstance occasioned Captain Smith to come forward. He wrote a letter to his friend Mr. Hill, in which he stated that he had seen those things, while in the West Indies, which Mr. Ramsay had a.s.serted to exist, but which had been so boldly denied. He gave, also, permission to Mr. Hill to publish this letter. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on Captain Smith, for thus standing forth in a n.o.ble cause, and in behalf of an injured character.

The last of the necessary forerunners and coadjutors of this cla.s.s, whom I am to mention, was our much-admired poet, Cowper; and a great coadjutor he was, when we consider what value was put upon his sentiments, and the extraordinary circulation of his works. There are few persons who have not been properly impressed by the following lines:--

My ear is pain'd, My soul is sick with every day's report, Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, It does not feel for man. The natural bond Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colour'd like his own, and having power To inforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd, Make enemies of nations, who had else, Like kindred drops been mingled into one.

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And, worse than all, and most to be deplored As human Nature's broadest, foulest blot,-- Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.

Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head to think himself a man?

I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

No: dear as freedom is,--and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price,-- I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.

We have no slaves at home--then why abroad?

And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emanc.i.p.ate and loos'd.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall[A].

That's n.o.ble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire--that where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

[Footnote A: Expressions used in the great trial, when Mr. Sharp obtained the verdict in favour of Somerset.]

CHAPTER IV.

--Second cla.s.s of forerunners and coadjutors, up to May 1787, consists of the Quakers in England.--Of George Fox and others.--Of the body of the Quakers a.s.sembled at the yearly meeting in 1727; and at various other times.--Quakers, as a body, pet.i.tion Parliament; and circulate books on the subject.--Individuals among them become labourers and a.s.sociate in behalf of the Africans; Dilwyn, Harrison, and others.--This the first a.s.sociation ever formed in England for the purpose.

The second cla.s.s of the forerunners and coadjutors in this great cause, up to May 1787, will consist of the Quakers in England.

The first of this cla.s.s was George Fox, the venerable founder of this benevolent society.

George Fox was contemporary with Richard Baxter, being born not long after him, and dying much about the same time. Like him, he left his testimony against this wicked trade. When he was in the island of Barbados, in the year 1671, he delivered himself to those who attended his religious meetings in the following manner:--

"Consider with yourselves," says he, "if you were in the same condition as the poor Africans are--who came strangers to you, and were sold to you as slaves--I say, if this should be the condition of you or yours, you would think it a hard measure; yea, and very great bondage and cruelty. And, therefore, consider seriously of this; and do you for them and to them, as you would willingly have them, or any others, do unto you, were you in the like slavish condition, and bring them to know the Lord Christ." And in his Journal, speaking of the advice which he gave his friends at Barbados, he says, "I desired also that they would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with their negroes, and not to use cruelty towards them, as the manner of some had been, and that after certain years of servitude they should make them free."

William Edmundson, who was a minister of the society, and, indeed, a fellow-traveller with George Fox, had the boldness in the same island to deliver his sentiments to the governor on the same subject. Having been brought before him and accused of making the Africans Christians, or, in other words, of making them rebel and destroy their owners, he replied, "That it was a good thing to bring them to the knowledge of G.o.d and Christ Jesus, and to believe in him who died for them and all men, and that this would keep them from rebelling, or cutting any person's throat; but if they did rebel and cut their throats, as the governor insinuated they would, it would be their own doing, in keeping them in ignorance and under oppression, in giving them liberty to be common with women like brutes, and, on the other hand, in starving them for want of meat and clothes convenient; thus, giving them liberty in that which G.o.d restrained, and restraining them in that which was meat and clothing."

I do not find any individual of this society moving in this cause, for some time after the death of George Fox and William Edmundson. The first circ.u.mstance of moment which I discover, is a resolution of the whole Society on the subject, at their yearly meeting, held in London in the year 1727. The resolution was contained in the following words:--"It is the sense of this meeting, that the importing of negroes from their native country and relations by Friends is not a commendable nor allowed practice, and is, therefore, censured by this meeting."

In the year 1758, the Quakers thought it their duty, as a body, to pa.s.s another resolution upon this subject. At this, time the nature of the trade beginning to be better known, we find them more animated upon it, as the following extract will show:--

"We fervently warn all in profession with us, that they carefully avoid being any way concerned in reaping the unrighteous profits, arising from the iniquitous practice of dealing in negro or other slaves; whereby, in the original purchase, one man selleth another, as he doth the beasts that perish, without any better pretension to a property in him than that of superior force; in direct violation of the Gospel rule, which teacheth all to do as they would be done by, and to do good to all; being the reverse of that covetous disposition, which furnisheth encouragement to those poor ignorant people to perpetuate their savage wars, in order to supply the demands of this most unnatural traffic, by which great numbers of mankind, free by nature, are subject to inextricable bondage, and which hath often been observed to fill their possessors with haughtiness, tyranny, luxury, and barbarity, corrupting the minds and debasing the morals of their children, to the unspeakable prejudice of religion and virtue, and the exclusion of that holy spirit of universal love, meekness, and charity, which is the unchangeable nature and the glory of true Christianity. We, therefore, can do no less, than, with the greatest earnestness, impress it upon Friends everywhere, that they endeavour to keep their hands clear of this unrighteous gain of oppression."

The Quakers. .h.i.therto, as appears by the two resolutions which have been quoted, did nothing more than seriously warn all those in religious profession with them against being concerned in this trade. But in three years afterwards, or at the yearly meeting in 1761, they came to a resolution, as we find by the following extract from their minutes, that any of their members haying a concern in it should be disowned:--"This meeting having reason to apprehend that divers under our name, are concerned in the unchristian traffic in negroes, doth recommend it earnestly to the care of Friends everywhere, to discourage, as much as in them lies, a practice so repugnant to our Christian profession; and to deal with all such as shall persevere in a conduct so reproachful to Christianity; and to disown them, if they desist not therefrom."

The yearly meeting of 1761, having thus agreed to exclude from members.h.i.+p such as should be found concerned in this trade, that of 1763 endeavoured to draw the cords, still tighter, by attaching criminality to those who should aid and abet the trade in any manner. By the minute, which was made on this occasion, I apprehend that no one belonging to the Society could furnish even materials for such voyages. "We renew our exhortation, that Friends everywhere be especially careful to keep their hands clear of giving encouragement in any shape to the Slave Trade, it being evidently destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, and visited by one divine light, in order to salvation; a traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the misery of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenour of the Gospel."

Some pleasing intelligence having been sent on this subject, by the Society in America to the Society in England, the yearly meeting of 1772 thought it their duty to notice it, and to keep their former resolutions alive by the following minute:--"It appears that the practice of holding negroes in oppressive and unnatural bondage hath been so successfully discouraged by Friends in some of the colonies, as to be considerably lessened. We cannot but approve of these salutary endeavours, and earnestly intreat that they may be continued, that through the favour of divine Providence a traffic, so unmerciful and unjust in its nature to a part of our own species made, equally with ourselves, for immortality, may come to be considered by all in its proper light, and be utterly abolished as a reproach to the Christian name."

I must beg leave to stop here for a moment, just to pay the Quakers a due tribute of respect for the proper estimation, in which they have uniformly held the miserable outcasts of society, who have been the subject of these minutes. What a contrast does it afford to the sentiments of many others concerning them! How have we been compelled to prove by a long chain of evidence, that they had the same feelings and capacities as ourselves! How many, professing themselves enlightened, even now view them as of a different species! But in the minutes which have been cited we have seen them uniformly represented, as persons "ransomed by one and the same Saviour," "as visited by one and the same light for salvation," and "as made equally for immortality as others."

These practical views of mankind, as they are highly honourable to the members of this Society, so they afford a proof both of the reality and of the consistency of their religion.

But to return:--From this time, there appears to have been a growing desire in this benevolent society to step out of its ordinary course in behalf of this injured people. It had hitherto confined itself to the keeping of its own members unpolluted by any gain from their oppression.

But it was now ready to make an appeal to others, and to bear a more public testimony in their favour. Accordingly, in the month of June, 1783, when a bill had been brought into the House of Commons for certain regulations to be made with respect to the African Trade, the society sent the following pet.i.tion to that branch of the legislature:--

"Your pet.i.tioners, met in this their annual a.s.sembly, having solemnly considered the state of the enslaved negroes, conceive themselves engaged, in religious duty, to lay the suffering situation of that unhappy people before you, as a subject loudly calling for the humane interposition of the legislature,

"Your pet.i.tioners regret that a nation, professing the Christian faith, should so far counteract the principles of humanity and justice, as by the cruel treatment of this oppressed race to fill their minds with prejudices against the mild and beneficent doctrines of the gospel.