The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume I — John Shaqi
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
We are obliged then to view the counterpart of the evil in question, before
we can make a proper estimate of the nature of it. And, in examining this
part of it, we shall find that we have a no less frightful picture to
behold than in the former cases; or that, while the miseries endured by the
unfortunate Africans excite our pity on the one hand, the vices, which are
connected with them, provoke our indignation and abhorrence on the other.
The Slave-trade, in this point of view, must strike us as an immense mass
of evil on account of the criminality attached to it, as displayed in the
various branches of it, which have already been examined. For, to take the
counterpart of the evil in the first of these, can we say, that no moral
turpitude is to be placed to the account of those, who living on the
continent of Africa give birth to the enormities, which take place in
consequence of the prosecution of this trade? Is not that man made morally
worse, who is induced to become a tiger to his species, or who, instigated
by avarice, lies in wait in the thicket to get possession of his
fellow-man? Is no injustice manifest in the land, where the prince,
unfaithful to his duty, seizes his innocent subjects, and sells them for
slaves? Are no moral evils produced among those communities, which make war
upon other communities for the sake of plunder, and without any previous
provocation or offence? Does no crime attach to those, who accuse others
falsely, or who multiply and divide crimes for the sake of the profit of
the punishment, and who for the same reason, continue the use of barbarous
and absurd ordeals as a test of innocence or guilt?
In the second of these branches the counterpart of the evil is to be seen
in the conduct of those, who purchase the miserable natives in their own
country, and convey them to distant lands. And here questions, similar to
the former, may be asked. Do they experience no corruption of their nature,
or become chargeable with no violation of right, who, when they go with
their ships to this continent, know the enormities which their visits there
will occasion, who buy their fellow-creature man, and this, knowing the way
in which he comes into their hands, and who chain, and imprison, and
scourge him? Do the moral feelings of those persons escape without injury,
whose hearts are hardened? And can the hearts of those be otherwise than
hardened, who are familiar with the tears and groans of innocent strangers
forcibly torn away from every thing that is dear to them in life, who are
accustomed to see them on board their vessels in a state of suffocation and
in the agonies of despair, and who are themselves in the habits of the
cruel use of arbitrary power?
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