would not have possessed at all. The injustice complained of was not confined to the bare circumstance of robbing them of the right to their own labor. It was conspicuous throughout the system."

"WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchased slave,

Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,

Because you bought them: shall I say to you,
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be seasoned with such viands? you will answer,
The slaves are ours: so do I answer you:
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it;
If you deny me, fie upon your law."

"SIR,-Iniquitous, and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that dreary system of partial bondage, which her laws have hitherto supported with a solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citizens by their practice countenanced.

"Founded in a disgraceful traffic, to which the parent country lent her fostering aid, from motives of interest, but which even she would have disdained to encourage, had England been the destined mart of such inhuman merchandise, its continuance is as shameful as its origin.

"Wherefore should we confine the edge of censure to our ancestors, or those from whom they purchased? Are not we EQUALLY guilty? They strewed around the seeds of slavery-we cherish and sustain the growth. They introduced the system—we enlarge, invigorate, and confirm it.” (William Pinckney, speech in the Maryland House of Delegates, 1789.)

THOMAS ERSKINE.-The Lord Chancellor-Erskine-said: "From information which he could not dispute, he was warranted in saying, that on this continent [Africa] husbands

were fraudulently and forcibly severed from their wives, and parents from their children; and that all the ties of blood and affection were torn up by the roots. He had himself seen the unhappy natives put together in heaps in the hold of a ship, where, with every possible attention to them, their situation must have been intolerable. He had also heard proved in courts of justice, facts still more dreadful than those which he had seen. One of these he would just mention. The slaves on board a certain ship rose in a mass to liberate themselves; and having far advanced in the pursuit of their object, it became necessary to repel them by force. Some of them yielded; some of them were killed in the scuffle; but many of them actually jumped into the sea and were drowned; thus preferring death to the misery of their situation; while others hung to the ship, repenting of their rashness, and bewailing with frightful noises their horrid fate. Thus the whole vessel exhibited but one hideous scene of wretchedness. They who were subdued, and secured in chains, were seized with the flux, which carried many of them off. These things were proved in a trial before a British jury, which had to consider whether this was a loss which fell within the policy of insurance—the slaves being regarded as if they had been only a cargo of dead matter. He could mention other instances, but they were much too shocking to be described. Surely, their lordships could never consider such a traffic to be consistent with humanity or justice."

8. Slavery is the parent of the slave-trade.

Africa is annually robbed of four hundred thousand of her population, to glut the cupidity or to minister to the pride and luxury of nominal Christians and true Mohammedans. From two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand of these perish in their original capture; by the fatigues and privations in their transit to the coast; by disease and death in the middle passage. And the remain

der, or between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand, are doomed to perpetual slavery. There are above one hundred thousand transported to Cuba and Brazil, by the two weakest nations of Europe; and, in consequence of the vigilance of the British nation, the horrors of the trade, as to capture, middle passage, landing and seasoning, are greater than before the legal condemnation of the trade. When the contest against the slave-trade commenced, a little over half a century ago, it was calculated there were from two to three millions of slaves in the world! There were recently, according to documents quoted by Sir James Buxton, from six to seven millions. Fifty years ago,

it was estimated that one hundred thousand slaves were annually taken from Africa. Now it is calculated the number is four hundred thousand per annum.

'To begin with that which has chiefly occupied my attention for many months past: last November I started on a pilgrimage through all the books and parliamentary documents connected with the slave-trade. I began from the very beginning, and, partly in person, still more by deputy, I traversed the whole subject; and such a scene of diabolism, and such an excess of misery, as I have had to survey, never, I am persuaded, before fell to the lot of an unhappy investigator. Will you believe it, the slave-trade, though England has relinquished it, is now double to what it was when Wilberforce first began; and its horrors not only aggravated by the increase of the total, but in each particular case more intense than they were in 1788? Will you believe it, again, that it requires at the rate of a thousand human beings per diem in order to satisfy its enormous maw ? How glad have I been to have escaped from the turmoils of Parliament, and to have my mind and my time my own, that I might bestow them without interruption on this vast mass of misery and crime!"-J. F. Buxton's Letter to J. J. Gurney, August 18, 1838. (See Buxton's Life, p. 369.)

The demand creates a market. The system of slavery makes the demand for slaves. The Christian breeders of them can not supply them cheap enough. Hence the foreign slave-trade, the offspring of slavery. And what moral difference is there between buying and selling men, women, and children, in the slave states, in carrying on the internal slave-trade, and going to the coast of Africa to steal or purchase them? There is no moral difference. The law made by slaveholders establishes a difference; but the law of God pronounces both to be man-stealing, and worthy of death. He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, shall surely be put to death," Ex. xxi, 16. While slavery exists, the slave-trade must live and flourish, without mitigation or diminution.

9. The state of Africa before visited by the Europeans may be considered, for the purpose of meeting the objection which is made by some, that the slaves are in a better condition here than they were in Africa. They say the slaves were captives or convicts, who would be sacrificed, were they not carried away; that slavery as it exists here never existed in Africa, and the kind that does exist has many ameliorating circumstances attending it, unknown to our slave code. Besides, the alleged misery, and degradation of Africa, were introduced, to a very great degree, by the evil deeds of those who had so far drowned the voice of conscience as to engage in seizing or buying even convicts for gain, convey them to the market by the middle passage, and complete their infamous deeds by selling them like brutes or beasts. The following testimonies we adduce in favor of our position:

Axim is cultivated and abounds with numerous large and beautiful villages: its inhabitants are industriously em. ployed in trade, fishing, or agriculture. The inhabitants of Adam always expose large quantities of corn to sell, besides what they want for their own use. The people of Acron

husband their grounds and time so well, that every year produces a plentiful harvest. When walking through the Fetu country I have seen it abound with fine, well-built, and populous towns, agreeably enriched with vast quantities of corn and cattle, palm-wine and oil. The inhabitants all apply themselves, without distinction, to agriculture. Some sow corn; others press oil, and draw wine from the palmtrees. Formerly all crimes in Africa were compensated by fine or restitution, and, where restitution was impracticable, by corporeal punishment." (Bosman.)

"The discerning natives count it their greatest unhappiness, that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say, that we Christians introduced the traffic of slaves; and that, before our coming, they lived in peace. But, say they, it is observable, wherever Christianity comes, there come swords, and guns, and powder, and ball with it." (Smith, sent out by the Royal African Company, in 1726.)

"The Europeans are far from desiring to act as peacemakers among them. It would be too contrary to their interests; for the only object of their wars is, to carry off slaves; and as these form the principal part of their traffic, they would be apprehensive of drying up the source of it, were they to encourage the people to live well together.

The neighborhood of the Damel and Tiu keep them perfectly at war, the benefit of which accrues to the company, who buy all the prisoners made on either side; and the more there are to sell, the greater is their profit; for the only end of their armaments is, to make captives, to sell them to the white traders." (Bruce.)

Arlus, of Dantzic, says, that, in his time, "those liable to pay fines were banished till the fine was paid; when they returned to their houses and possessions."

Since this trade has been used, all punishments have been changed into slavery. There being an advantage in such condemnation, thev strain the crimes very hard, in