‘But, notwithstanding this, we ourselves (who profess to be _Christians_, and boast of the peculiar advantage we enjoy, by means of an express revelation of our duty from Heaven) are in effect, these very untaught and rude _Heathen_ countries. With all our superior light, we instil into those, whom we call savage and barbarous, the most despicable opinion of human nature. We, to the utmost of our power, weaken and dissolve the universal tie, that binds and unites mankind. We practise what we should exclaim against, as the utmost excess of cruelty and tyranny, if nations of the world, differing in colour and form of government from ourselves, were so possessed of empire, as to be able to reduce us to a state of unmerited and brutish servitude. Of consequence, we sacrifice our reason, our humanity, our _Christianity_, to an unnatural sordid gain. We teach other nations to despise and trample under foot, all the obligations of social virtue. We take the most effectual method to prevent the propagation of the Gospel, by representing it as a scheme of power and barbarous oppression, and an enemy to the natural privileges and rights of men. ‘Perhaps all that I have now offered, may be of very little weight to restrain this enormity, this aggravated iniquity. However, I shall still have the satisfaction, of having entered my private protest against a practice which, in my opinion, _bids that God, who is the God and Father of the_ Gentiles _unconverted to_ Christianity, _most daring and bold defiance, and spurns at all the principles both of natural and revealed Religion_.’ How the _British_ nation first came to be concerned in a practice, by which the rights and liberties of mankind are so violently infringed, and which is so opposite to the apprehensions _Englishmen_ have always had of what natural justice requires, is indeed surprising. It was about the year 1563, in the reign of Queen _Elizabeth_, that the _English_ first engaged in the _Guinea_ Trade; when it appears, from an account in _Hill_’s Naval History, page 293, That when Captain _Hawkins_ returned from his first voyage to _Africa_, that generous spirited Princess, attentive to the interest of her subjects, sent for the Commander, to whom she expressed her concern lest any of the _African_ Negroes should be carried off without their free consent, _declaring it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers_. Captain _Hawkins_ promised to comply with the Queen’s injunction: nevertheless, we find in the account, given in the same History, of _Hawkins_’s second voyage, the author using these remarkable words, _Here began the horrid practice of forcing the_ Africans _into slavery_.