But I fear not to accuse them--the prosecution of the present barbarous and iniquitous slave trade affords us too many instances of cruelties exercised against the harmless Africans. A trade, which, after it was abolished in Europe by the general introduction of Christianity, was again renewed about the fourteenth century by the mercenary Portuguese, and now prosecuted by the Spaniards, French and British, in defiance of every principle of justice, humanity and religion. Ye moderns, will you not blush at degenerating into ancient barbarity, and at wearing the garb of Christians, when you pursue the practices of savages? Hasten to reform, and put an end to this unnatural and destructive trade--Do you not know that thousands of your fellow-mortals are annually entombed by it? and that it proves ruinous to your government? You go to Africa to purchase slaves for foreign markets, and lose the advantages of all the proper articles of commerce, which that country affords. You bury your seamen upon the pestiferous shores; and, shocking to humanity! make monsters of all you engage in the traffic. Who are more brutal than the Captains of vessels in the slave trade? Not even the tawny savage of the American wilds, who thirsts after the blood of the Christian, and carries off his scalp the trophy of splendid victory! They even countenance the practice of the ancients, in seeing a sturdy mastiff tear in pieces some poor wretch of their hateful cargoes, or in viewing their wreathes and tortures, when smarting under the lash of a seasoned cat.[36] It is time to abolish these enormities, and to stay such repeated insults from being offered to Divine Providence: Some dreadful curse from heaven may be the effect of them, and the innocent be made to suffer for the guilty. What, will you not consider that the Africans are men? that they have human souls to be saved? that they are born free and independent? A violation of which prerogatives is an infringement upon the laws of God. But, are these the only crimes you are guilty of in pursuing the trade? No--you stir up the harmless Africans to war, and stain their fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to be made the instruments of grandeur, pride and luxury. You commit also the crime of kidnapping others, whom you forcibly drag from their beloved country, from the bosoms of their dearest relatives; so leave a wife without a husband, a sister without a brother, and a helpless infant to bemoan the loss of its indulgent parent.