Bleft offspring of the warm embrace! Tho' ftrong thy bow, dear boy, But, when her step had touch'd the strand, PORT-ROYAL fhouts were heard aloud, No rabble rout,-I heard it faid, Gay Goddess of the fable fmile! For me, if I no longer own It were ingratitude to flight Then 31 CHAP. 32 IV. BOOK Then, playful goddess! ceafe to change, Do thou in gentle PHIBBA fmile, Thus have I fung; perhaps too gay Should then the fong too wanton feem, CHAP. СНАР. II. Of Negroes in a state of Slavery.-Preliminary Obfervations.-Origin of the Slave Trade.Portuguese Settlements on the African Coaft.Negroes introduced into Hifpaniola in 1502, and the Slave Trade revived at the inftance of Barth. de las Cafas in 1517.-Hawkins's Voyages to the coaft, in 1562 and 1563.-African Company eftablished by James I.-Second charter in 1631 by Charles I.-Third charter in 1662.-Fourth charter in 1672.-Effect of the Petition and Declaration of Right in 1688.-Acts of the 9th and 10th of William and Mary, c. 26.—New regulations in 1750.-Defcription of the African Coaft.-Forts and Factories.--Exports from Great Britain.-Number of Negroes tranfported annually to the British Colonies.-State of the Trade from 1771 to 1787.-Number of Negroes at this time exported annually by the different Nations of Europe. THE HE progrefs of my work has now brought CHAP. me to the contemplation of human nature in its II. moft debased and abject ftate ;-to the fad profpect of 450,000 reasonable beings (in the English Iflands only) in a state of barbarity and slavery; of whom I will not fay the major part, butgreat numbers affuredly, have been torn from their native country and deareft connections, by means which no good mind can reflect upon but with fentiments of difguft, commiferation, and forrow! VOL. II. C I am BOOK IV. * I am not unapprized of the danger I incur at this juncture in treating the fubject of African Slavery, and the Slave Trade. By endeavouring to remove thofe wild and ill-founded notions which have been long encouraged by misinformed writers in Great Britain, to the prejudice of the inhabitants of the British Sugar Islands, I am conscious that I fhall be expofed to all that " bitterness of wrath, and anger and clamour, and evil fpeaking and malice," with which it has long been popular to load the unfortunate flaveholder: yet nothing is more certain than that the Slave Trade may be very wicked, and the planters in general very innocent. Much the greatest part of the prefent inhabitants of the British Weft Indies came into poffeffion of their plantations by inheritance or accident. Many perfons there are, in Great Britain itself, who, amidst the continual fluctuation of human affairs, and the changes incident to property, find themfelves poffeffed of eitates in the Weft Indies which they have never feen, and invefted with powers over their fellow creatures there, which, however extenfively odious, they have never abufed: fome of thefe gentlemen, unacquainted with local circumftances, and mifled by the popular outcry, have humanely given orders to emancipate all their flaves, at whatever expence; but are convinced that their benevolent purposes cannot be carried into effect confiftently even with the happiness of the Negroes themselves.--The Reverend Society eftablifhed in Great Britain for propagating the Gofpel in foreign parts, are themfelves under this very predicament. That venerable fociety hold a plantation in Barbadoes under a devife of Co Alluding to the petitions depending in parliament (1791) for an abolition of the Slave Trade. lonel lonel Codrington; and they have found themfelves not only under the difagreeable ncceffity of fupporting the fyftem of flavery which was bequeathed to them with the land; but are induced alfo, from the purest and best motives, to purchafe occafionally a certain number of Negroes, in order to divide the work, and keep up the stock. They well know that moderate labour, unaccompanied with that wretched anxiety to which the poor of England are fubject, in making provifion for the day that is paffing over them, is a ftate of comparative felicity: and they know alfo, that men in favage life have no incentive to emulation perfuafion is loft on fuch men, and compulfion, to a certain degree, is humanity and charity. The queftion then, and the only question wherein the character of the planters is concerned, is this:-Making due allowance for human frailty under the influence of a degree of power ever dangerous to virtue, is their general conduct towards their flaves fuch only as neceffarily refults from their fituation? If to this enquiry, an affirmative be returned, furely Chriftian charity, though it may lament and condemn the firft establishment of a fyftem of flavery among them, and the means by which it is ftill kept up and fupported, will not haftily arraign thofe who neither introduced, nor, as I fhall hereafter fhew, have been wanting in their best endeavours to correct and remedy many of the evils of it. Having premised thus much, I fhall now proceed to lay before my readers fome account of the origin and prefent ftate of the Slave Trade, between the nations of Africa and fuch of the States of Europe as are concerned in it: this will conftitute what remains of the prefent chap C 2 ter. 35 CHAP. II. |