have at length sunk into a state of profound ignorance and barbarism; for they have long been in circumstances which have been ever found utterly incompatible with the rise and progress of civilization and knowledge; the more just subject of astonishment is, that the kingdoms in the interior should still be found in a condition of so much civil order and improvement, in spite of the pernicious effects of the Slave Trade on their moral and social state. But, through the gracious ordination of Heaven, the political, like the natural body, can exist under severe and harrassing disorders. They may materially injure its health and. comfort, and yet not utterly destroy it. Thus the evils which the interior countries suffer from the Slave Trade, are great and many; but their effects are not, as they commonly are on the coast, such as to break up the very foundations of society, and destroy the cohesion of its elementary parts. In the interior, the Slave Trade exercises powers of destruction which justly entitle it to the character of one of the greatest scourges of the human race. But it is on the coast, that it reaches its full dimensions, and attains to the highest point of its detestable pre-eminence.

But if the foregoing remarks prove plainly

that

that our Slave dealers have no just grounds for arguing, from the present uncivilized state of the coast, that it is incapable of civilization; surely we cannot but be astonished at the finished assurance, as well as the consummate injustice and cruelty, with which they would charge on the natural constitution and character of the natives of Africa, that very barbarism of which they themselves are the authors; and not only so, but which, after having produced it, they urge on us as a plea for continuing that wretched land under the same dreadful interdict, not only from all the comforts of the civilized state, but from all the charities of life; from all virtue and all happiness; sealing her up for ever in bondage, ignorance, and blood.

yet

You have been detained, 1 fear, far too long before this melancholy picture; and I am almost ashamed of apologizing for prolixity, when I consider what a world of woes" it is which I have been exhibiting to your view.

66

When men began to question the soundness of that logic, which grounded the right to carry off the natives of Africa into slavery, on their state of barbarism and ignorance; and still more, when it was retorted, that,

even granting the premises, that the Africans were thus dark and savage; the conclusion of a Christian reasoner ought naturally to be, that it was the duty of more favoured nations, to civilize and enlighten, not to oppress and enslave, them; another set of arguments was brought forth; that two-thirds, or perhaps three-fourths, of the Africans were Slaves in their own country; and not only so, but that partly from the cruel and bloody superstitions, partly from the political despotism common in Africa, their state was so wretched at home, (the very worst West Indian slavery, as Mr. Edwards affirms, being infinitely preferable to the very best in Africa) that, independently on any motives of interest, humanity alone would prompt us to transport them from such a condition of misery and degradation, to the comparative Paradise of West Indian servitude. To all swered and this the reply was obvious, that we had no right to make men happy against their will; and that whatever effect such an argument might have had on us, if urged from African lips, yet that it came before us in a very suspicious shape, when proceeding from those of a West Indian. But since all the above allegations, however unsatisfactory on grounds of justice, must be acknowledged to have some place in determining the practical

The asser

tion an

refuted.

effect

1

effect of the Slave Trade, on the happiness of the Africans themselves; it may not be improper to observe, that these assertions also are utterly disproved by Mr. Parke, and by other recent travellers, no less than by the witnesses produced by the Abolitionists.

Slaves real

state.

The slavery of Africa appeared, in truth, to African be a species of feudal or rather of patriarchal vassalage. The Slaves could not be sold by their masters but for crimes; not without the form of a trial, nor, in several parts, even without the verdict of a jury. They were described as sitting with their masters, like members of the same family, in primitive simplicity and comfort. "In all the laborious "occupations which Mr. Parke describes, both

66

agricultural and manufacturing, the Master "and the Slave work together without any "distinction of superiority." It appears also, from a passage in Parke, that Master and Slave stand towards each other in a parental and filial relation: "Have I not served

66

you" said an African, who had served Parke in the capacity of a domestic Slave, "Have I not served you as if you had been "to me a father and a master ?" Indeed it was the more ill-advised to make any comparison between the slavery of Africa and of the West Indies, because even the witnesses of

our

Opponents argument from the

cruelty of

our opponents give much the same account of the condition of the African Slaves.

These remarks ought ever to be borne in mind in all our considerations and reasonings concerning the state of society in Africa. They are sometimes, however, forgotten by the very writers themselves by whom they have been made. Our opponents have availed themselves of the ambiguities of language; and the state of these domestic Slaves, who are styled the bulk of the African population, is spoken of in terms applicable only to the condition of those wretched beings who are destined for the Slave-market, and who are waiting in fetters for a purchaser. The existence of this milder species of vassalage may even facilitate the complete civilization of the negro nations, by having familiarized their minds to the gradations of rank, and by having accustomed them to submit to the restraints of social life, and to be controlled by the authority of law and

custom.

Much use was likewise attempted to be made of the cruelties of some of the African the African monarchs, and especially of a certain king of Dahomy. "It was mercy to the poor Negroes to rescue them from such barbari

despots, and par

ticularly

from those

of the

King of
Dahomy.

ties."