But though the manumission of great numbers of English slaves took place during those bloody and fatal wars, and also in consequence of the politic and wise measures adopted by Henry VII. Yet it does not appear to have been fully or universally effected, or that slavery was then totally eradicated in England. We find that there were here some slaves in the reign of Henry VIII. and of Edward VI. and even of Elizabeth: {341a} and it may be doubtful, if they had entirely ceased to exist here before the reign of Charles I. and the civil war. They abounded in the parts about Lynn for a very long period; but whether as late as in some other parts of the kingdom is rather uncertain. {341b}—In talking and boasting of our great charter, and of the unwearied and undaunted exertions of our ancient barons and patriots to obtain and enforce it, and how careful they were on every occasion to maintain inviolate the rights and liberties of the people of England, we are seldom aware that a great part of the nation was all the while in actual slavery, and not a soul among the whole host of contemporary patriots and redoubtable zealots for freedom, ever once thinking of pleading their cause, or commiserating their sufferings! So also in more recent times have we been congratulating ourselves on our national virtue and ardent love of liberty and justice, while we were every year dragging thousands and tens of thousands of the poor Africans into west-indian slavery!! CHAP. II. Further remarks on the revolutionary effects of the conquest throughout the whole kingdom as well as at Lynn—Catalogue of bishops who formerly bore rule in this Town. The mighty change effected in this country by the conquest must have been felt at Lynn in common with all other places of a similar description. The great and opulent were doubtless the people who felt it most. {342} As to the middle classes, (if such there were that might properly be so denominated,) it must have affected them much less, and the lower orders very little, or perhaps, not at all. The latter were all _slaves_ before, and most unfeelingly treated by their masters and proprietors; and they could but be slaves still; nor is it likely that they met with worse treatment from their new masters. What might not be hoped from the virtue or justice of the Normans, might yet be expected from their policy; for in that quality they seem not to have been deficient; and it may be reasonably supposed that it would induce them to use the numerous slaves they found here no worse than they had been used by their former proprietors. Thus a great part of the nation, and perhaps the greatest part of it, might not be so very materially affected, or injured, by the Norman conquest, as some would be apt to imagine—if indeed it did not prove, on the whole, a benefit rather than detriment to them. {343}