"Hence arose that horrid and inhuman practice of dragging Africans into slavery, which has since been _so_ pursued, in defiance of every principle of justice and religion. Had Negroes been brought from the flames, to which in some countries they were devoted on their falling prisoners of war, and in others, sacrificed at the funeral obsequies of the great and powerful among themselves; in short had they by this traffic been delivered from _torture_ or _death_, European merchants _might have some excuse_ to plead in its vindication. _But according to the common mode in which it has been conducted_, we must confess it a difficult matter to conceive a _single_ argument in its defence. And though policy has given countenance and sanction to the trade, yet every candid and impartial man must confess, that it is atrocious and unjustifiable in every light in which it can be viewed, and turns merchants into a band of robbers, and trade into atrocious acts of fraud and violence." Historical Account of South-Carolina and Georgia. Anonymous. London printed in 1779--page 20, &c. "The number of Negroe slaves bartered for in one year (viz. 1768), on the Coast of Africa from Cape Blanco, to Rio Congo, amounted to 104,000 souls, whereof more than half (viz. 53,000) were shipped on account of British merchants, and 6,300 on the account of British Americans." The Law of Retribution by Granville Sharpe, Esq. page 147. note.] But how loudly soever reason, justice, and (may I not add) religion,[9] condemn the practice of slavery, it is acknowledged to have been very ancient, and almost universal. The Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient Germans also practiced it, as well as the more ancient Jews and Egyptians. By the Germans it was transmitted to the various kingdoms which arose in Europe out of the ruins of the Roman empire. In England it subsisted for some ages under the name of _villeinage_.[10] In Asia it seems to have been general, and in Africa universal, and so remains to this day: In Europe it hath long since declined; its first declension there, is said to have been in Spain, as early as the eighth century; and it is alleged to have been general about the middle of the fourteenth, and was near expiring in the sixteenth, when the discovery of the American continent, and the eastern and western coasts of Africa gave rise to the introduction of a new species of slavery. It took its origin from the Portuguese, who, in order to supply the Spaniards with persons able to sustain the fatigue of cultivating their new possessions in America, particularly the islands, opened a trade between Africa and America for the sale of Negroes, about the year 1508. The expedient of having slaves for labour was not long peculiar to the Spaniards, being afterwards adopted by other European colonies [Hargrave, ib.]: and though some attempts have been made to stop its progress in most of the United States, and several of them have the fairest prospects of success