The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume IClarkson, Thomas
History
The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume I
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa
In the year 1761, he visited several families in Pennsylvania, and, in
about three months afterwards, others about Shrewsbury and Squan in New
Jersey. On his return he added a second part to the treatise before
published on the keeping of slaves, a care which had been growing upon him
for some years.
In the year 1762, he printed, published, and distributed this treatise.
In 1767, he went on foot to the western shores of the same province on a
religious visit. After having crossed the Susquehanna, his old feelings
returned to him; for coming amongst people living in outward ease and
greatness, chiefly on the labour of slaves, his heart was much affected,
and he waited with humble resignation, to learn how he should further
perform his duty to this injured people. The travelling on foot, though it
was agreeable to the state of his mind, he describes to have been wearisome
to his body. He felt himself weakly at times, in consequence of it, but yet
continued to travel on. At one of the quarterly meetings of the Society,
being in great sorrow and heaviness, and under deep exercise on account of
the miseries of the poor Africans, he expressed himself freely to those
present, who held them in bondage. He expatiated on the tenderness and
loving-kindness of the apostles, as manifested in labours, perils, and
sufferings, towards the poor Gentiles, and contrasted their treatment of
the Gentiles with it, whom he described in the persons of their slaves: and
was much satisfied with the result of his discourse.
From this time we collect little more from his journal concerning him, than
that, in 1772, he embarked for England on a religious visit. After his
arrival there, he travelled through many counties, preaching in different
meetings of the Society, till he came to the city of York. But even here,
though he was far removed from the sight of those whose interests he had so
warmly espoused, he was not forgetful of their wretched condition. At the
quarterly meeting for that county, he brought their case before those
present in an affecting manner. He exhorted these to befriend their cause.
He remarked that as they, the Society, when under outward sufferings, had
often found a concern to lay them before the legislature, and thereby, in
the Lord's time, had obtained relief; so he recommended this oppressed part
of the creation to their notice, that they might, as the way opened,
represent their sufferings as individuals, if not as a religious society,
to those in authority in this land. This was the last opportunity that he
had of interesting himself in behalf of this injured people; for soon
afterwards he was seized with the small-pox at the house of a friend in the
city of York, where he died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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