Slavery
John Newton (1725–1807) first went to sea at the age of ten, sailing with his father, the captain of the vessel. By the age of twenty-eight he had wide experience both of the sea and of the slave trade, and was for the first time commanding a vessel himself. The Duke of Argyll left England for Bassa in West Africa (in what is now Guinea Bissau) in 1750, made the “middle passage” from Bassa to Antigua in the West Indies between 22 May and 2 July, and returned to Liverpool with a cargo of sugar, arriving in November. The following excerpts are from Newton’s journal of that voyage. In later life, Newton came to regret deeply his life as a trader of enslaved people (which he had given up for health reasons in 1754), eventually becoming a strong advocate for the abolition of the trade. He became a Christian minister and wrote that he would have left the slave trade sooner “had I considered it as I now do to be unlawful and wrong. But I never had a scruple upon this head at the time; nor was such a thought ever suggested to me by any friend.” In 1770 Newton wrote the famous hymn “Amazing Grace.”
Thursday 16 May
… [A] long boat came on board from Grande Bassa. I sent Billinge [the second mate] chiefly to satisfy myself of the state and price of slaves. He says the glut we heard so much of is entirely over, the Brittannia and Ranger having met very few. About Settra Crue there is still plenty (upon the account of a war very probably begun with that view) but extravagantly dear. … He brought me a sample of the prices in a woman slave he bought at Bassa, which upon costing up the goods I find cost 96 bars, and I ordered him to get one upon any terms for that reason. That I might not think he gave more than usual, he brought me a list of goods he saw Saunders pay for a man which amounts to 102 bars, and the farther to leeward the dearer still. I think I have sufficient reason not to go down, for setting aside the cost, the assortments in demand there would ruin me soon.
Tuesday 28 May
Secured the after bulkhead of the men’s room, for they had started almost every stantient. Their plot was exceedingly well laid, and had they been let alone an hour longer, must have occasioned us a good deal of trouble and damage. I have reason to be thankful they did not make attempts upon the coast when we had often 7 or 8 of our best men out of the ship at a time and the rest busy. They still look very gloomy and sullen and have doubtless mischief in their heads if they could find every opportunity to vent it. But I hope (by the Divine Assistance) we are fully able to overawe them now. …
Wednesday 12 June
Got the slaves up this morn. Washed them all with fresh water. They complained so much that was obliged to let them go down again when the rooms were cleaned. Buryed a man slave (No. 84) of a flux, which he has been struggling with near 7 weeks. …
Saturday 22 June
Being pretty warm, got up the men and washed all the slaves with fresh water. I am much afraid of another ravage from the flux, for we have had 8 taken within these few days. Have seen 2 or 3 tropick birds and a few flying fish.
Monday 24 June
Buried a girl slave (No. 92). In the afternoon while we were off the deck, William Cooney seduced a woman slave down into the room and lay with her brutelike in view of the whole quarter deck, for which I put him in irons. I hope this has been the first affair of the kind on board and I am determined to keep them quiet if possible. If anything happens to the woman I shall impute it to him, for she was big with child. Her number is 83. …
Friday 28 June
By the favour of Divine Providence made a timely discovery today that the slaves were forming a plot for an insurrection. Surprised 2 of them attempting to get off their irons, and upon farther search in their rooms, upon the information of 3 of the boys, found some knives, stones, shot, etc., and a cold chissel. Upon enquiry there appeared 8 principally concerned to move in projecting the mischief and 4 boys in supplying them with the above instruments. Put the boys in irons and slightly in the thumbscrews to urge them to a full confession. We have already 36 men out of our small number. …
Friday 5 July …
[I]n the morning Mr. Guichard went off with me to view the slaves. When came on shore again, after comparing orders and intelligence, he judged it best for the concern to sell here, if I approved it, without which, he was pleased to say, he would do nothing, tho my letters from the owners referred me wholly to his direction. It seems by all I can learn that this is likely to prove as good a market as any of the neighbouring islands; and as for Jamaica or America, I should be extremely loth to venture so far, for we have had the men slaves so long on board that their patience is just worn out, and I am certain they would drop fast had we another passage to make. Monday is appointed for the sale.
Cugoano was kidnapped in West Africa in 1770 and sold into slavery in the West Indies. His owner traveled with him to England in 1772, and he declared himself a free man on English soil following the landmark Somerset case. His Thoughts and Sentiments is the first substantial anti-slavery work by a black writer.
But why should total abolition, and an universal emancipation of slaves, and the enfranchisement of all the Black People employed in the culture of the Colonies, taking place as it ought to do, and without any hesitation, or delay for a moment, even though it might have some seeming appearance of loss either to government or to individuals, be feared at all? Their labour, as freemen, would be as useful in the sugar colonies as any other class of men that could be found; and should it even take place in such a manner that some individuals, at first, would suffer loss as a just reward for their wickedness in slave-dealing, what is that to the happiness and good of doing justice to others; and, I must say, to the great danger, otherwise, that must eventually hang over the whole community? It is certain, that the produce of the labour of slaves, together with all the advantages of the West-India traffic, bring in an immense revenue to government; but let that amount be what it will, there might be as much or more expected from the labour of an equal increase of free people, and without the implication of any guilt attending it, and which, otherwise, must be a greater burden to bear, and more ruinous consequences to be feared from it, than if the whole national debt was to sink at once, and to rest upon the heads of all that might suffer by it. Whereas, if a generous encouragement were to be given to a free people, peaceable among themselves, intelligent and industrious, who by art and labour would improve the most barren situations, and make the most of that which is fruitful; the free and voluntary labour of many, would soon yield to any government, many greater advantages than any thing that slavery can produce. And this should be expected, wherever a Christian government is extended, and the true religion is embraced, that the blessings of liberty should be extended likewise, and that it should diffuse its influences first to fertilize the mind, and then the effects of its benignity would extend, and arise with exuberant blessings and advantages from all its operations. Was this to be the case, every thing would increase and prosper at home and abroad, and ten thousand times greater and greater advantages would arise to the state, and more permanent and solid benefit to individuals from the service of freemen, than ever they can reap, or in any possible way enjoy, by the labour of slaves. …
Falconbridge sailed aboard slave trading vessels as a surgeon in the 1780s. The work from which the following excerpts are taken was given wide distribution by the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1789 Falconbridge also testified as to the horrors of the trade before the Parliamentary Committee investigating the issue.
The men negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two, by hand-cuffs on their wrists, and by irons rivetted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks, and placed in an apartment partitioned off for that purpose. The women likewise are placed in a separate apartment between decks, but without being ironed. And an adjoining room, on the same deck, is besides appointed for the boys. Thus are they all placed in different apartments.
But at the same time, they are frequently stowed so close, as to admit of no other posture than lying on their sides. Neither will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, permit them the indulgence of an erect posture; especially where there are platforms, which is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending from the side of the ship towards the centre. They are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three feet from each deck. Upon these the negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath.
In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a conical form, being near two feet in diameter at the bottom, and only one foot at the top, and in depth about twenty-eight inches; to which, when necessary, the negroes have recourse. It often happens, that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavouring to get to them, tumble over their companions, in consequence of their being shackled. These accidents, although unavoidable, are productive of continual quarrels, in which some of them are always bruised. In this distressed situation, unable to proceed, and prevented from getting to the tubs, they desist from the attempt; and, as the necessities of nature are not to be repelled, ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh source of broils and disturbances, and tends to render the condition of the poor captive wretches still more uncomfortable. The nuisance arising from these circumstances, is not unfrequently increased by the tubs being much too small for the purpose intended, and their being usually emptied but once every day. The rule for doing this, however, varies in different ships, according to the attention paid to the health and convenience of the slaves by the captain. …
The diet of the negroes, while on board, consists chiefly of horse-beans, boiled to the consistence of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice, and sometimes of a small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce, composed of palm-oil, mixed with flour, water, and pepper, which the sailors call slabber-sauce. Yams are the favourite food of the Eboe, or Bight negroes, and rice or corn, of those from the Gold and Windward Coasts; each preferring the produce of their native soil. …
They are commonly fed twice a day, about eight o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon. In most ships they are only fed with their own food once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs, about the size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs in companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon lose, and when they are not allowed others, they feed themselves with their hands. In favourable weather they are fed upon deck, but in bad weather their food is given them below. Numberless quarrels take place among them during their meals; more especially when they are put upon short allowance. … Their allowance of water is about half a pint each at every meal. It is handed round in a bucket, and given to each negroe in a pannekin; a small utensil with a strait handle, somewhat similar to a sauce-boat. …
Upon the negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel, and placed so near their lips, as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats, of forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These means have generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed, that a certain captain in the slave trade, poured melted lead on such of the negroes as obstinately refused their food.
Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health, they are sometimes obliged to dance, when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly, or do not move with agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand for that purpose. Their musick, upon these occasions consists of a drum, sometimes with only one head; and when that is worn out, they do not scruple to make use of the bottom of one of the tubs before described. The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country. …
On board some ships, the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to heart, as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure, and sometimes are guilty of such brutal excesses, as disgrace human nature.
William Wilberforce (1759–1833) began his contribution to the long struggle to persuade the British Parliament to abolish the slave trade with the speech excerpted below. In April of 1791, a bill put forward by Wilberforce was voted down by 163 votes to 88; not until 1807 were his efforts on this score successful. News of the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act reached Wilberforce on his deathbed in 1833.
A report has been made by his Majesty’s Privy Council, which, I trust, every Gentleman has read, and which ascertains the Slave Trade to be just such in practice as we know, from theory, that it must be. What should we suppose must naturally be the consequence of our carrying on a Slave Trade with Africa? With a country, vast in its extent, not utterly barbarous, but civilized in a very small degree? Does any one suppose a Slave Trade would help their civilization? That Africa would profit by such an intercourse? Is it not plain, that she must suffer from it? That civilization must be checked; that her barbarous manners must be made more barbarous; and that the happiness of her millions of inhabitants must be prejudiced by her intercourse with Britain? Does not every one see, that a Slave Trade, carried on around her coasts, must carry violence and desolation to her very centre? That, in a Continent, just emerging from barbarism, if a Trade in Men is established—if her men are all converted into goods, and become commodities that can be bartered, it follows, they must be subject to ravage just as goods are; and this too, at a period of civilization, when there is no protecting Legislature to defend this their only sort of property, in the same manner as the rights of property are maintained by the legislature of every civilized country.
We see then, in the nature of things, how easily all the practices of Africa are to be accounted for. Her kings are never compelled to war, that we can hear of, by public principles,—by national glory—still less by the love of their people. In Europe it is the extension of commerce, the maintenance of national honor, or some great public object, that is ever the motive to war with every monarch; but, in Africa, it is the personal avarice and sensuality of their kings: these two vices of avarice and sensuality, (the most powerful and predominant in natures thus corrupt) we tempt, we stimulate in all these African Princes, and we depend upon these vices for the very maintenance of the Slave Trade. …
Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance,—we cannot evade it,—it is now an object placed before us,—we cannot pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes, that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.
A Society [the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade] has been established for the abolition of this trade, [in 1787] in which Dissenters, Quakers, Churchmen—in which the most conscientious of all persuasions have all united, and made a common cause in this great question. Let not Parliament be the only body that is insensible to the principles of national justice. Let us make reparation to Africa, so far as we can, by establishing a trade upon true commercial principles, and we shall soon find the rectitude of our conduct rewarded, by the benefits of a regular and a growing commerce.
It is often (and rightly) pointed out that appeals to Christian virtue were central to the abolitionist cause. As some of the following excerpts illustrate, appeals to Christian principles were also made on the other side of the argument—as were appeals of a variety of other sorts.
from Reverend Robert Boncher Nicholls, Observations, Occasioned by the Attempts Made in England to Effect the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1788
[The author] thought it incumbent on him first to search the scriptures, to learn whether slavery was inconsistent with the revealed will of the Deity. The result of his enquiry was perfectly satisfactory to himself, and he thought it but right to point out some few of the many passages, to be found in the sacred volumes, which justify that commerce. Since the following observations went to the press the author has the great satisfaction to find, that he might have pursued his original plan without any injury to the cause he has endeavoured to support, as he has seen a pamphlet by the Rev. Mr. Harris, of Liverpool, who has so clearly proved, from the scriptures, that slavery is neither contrary to the law nor gospel, that it is scarcely possible for the most conscientious believer, who reads that tract, to doubt in future; whether the man servant or the maid servant is not as much a man’s property as “his ox or his ass, or any thing that is his.” …
About the time of Lord Mansfield’s determination in the case of Mr. Stuart’s negro, [those in England who were attended by slaves] … had every right to suppose they were authorised, by the laws of Great Britain, as well as those of the colonies, to consider those people as their property; and that they had a right to their services in Europe, or to send, or accompany them back to the colonies, as they judged proper: They found themselves mistaken, and that it was permitted to debauch their slaves, to encourage or entice them to run away, with impunity. The ideas of liberty, the charms of novelty, and an ignorance of the country they had got to; where they found themselves upon a perfect equality, at least, with the inferior white people, could not fail of having pernicious effects upon their minds, and great numbers ran away from their masters. They in general plunged into vice and debauchery, and many of them, who were desirous of returning to their masters and mistresses, were refused to be received. The whole of those thus lost to their owners, and as to every useful purpose, to the community, cannot have been less in number than from 15,000 to 20,000.—As most of them were prime, young, seasoned, or Creole slaves, the loss to their owners, the planters, have not been less than from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 sterling. A large sum to be sacrificed, to the mere names of liberty and humanity! What has been the result of thus extending the blessings of liberty to so many wretched slaves. Let any body shew scarce a single instance of any one of these people being in so happy a situation as they were before. The greater part, it is known, died miserably, in a very short time. No parish was willing to receive them, so that the survivers, after begging about the streets of London, and suffering all those evils, and inconveniencies, consequent on idleness and poverty, famine, disease, and the inclemency of the weather; attracted the attention of the public, and government was prevailed upon to undertake the transportation of them to the country from whence they or their ancestors had been ravished by the wicked traders of London, Liverpool, and Bristol.
Equal unhappiness would be the lot of the slaves in the islands, if they were set free; what could they do to obtain a livelihood? To suppose they would hire themselves out to work, can only enter into the imagination of those who do not know the people, or the country: What has so lately passed in England is surely sufficient to shew that there can be no idea, they will, any of them, wish to return to their own country. Thousands of negroes have been made free by their masters in the colonies, and it may, with truth, be asserted, that, notwithstanding many of them were very capable of paying for a passage to any part of Africa they thought proper; scarce a single instance can be produced of any one of them desiring to return to the place of his nativity.
The present attempt to cram liberty down the throats of people who are incapable of digesting it, can with propriety, be resembled to nothing, so well as to the account of poor Gulliver, when he was carried out of his little cabinet to the top of the house, by the Brobdignag Monkey.
from Anonymous, Thoughts on the Slavery of Negroes, as It Affects the British Colonies in the West Indies: Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of Both Houses of Parliament, 1788
If I am able to shew that the blacks are really happy; that their condition (if the odious name of slave could be forgotten) is preferable to the lower orders of the people in Great Britain and Ireland; and that they enjoy the necessaries, and often the luxuries of life, I trust every honest man will feel a just indignation at any attempt to mislead his judgment, and to impose upon him an opinion of cruelty, which has no existence in any of the British West India islands. …
Let us take a view of the situation of the Africans, the nature of their country, their climate and government, and the genius and disposition of its inhabitants. The appearance of the slave-coast of Africa, when it was first visited by the Europeans, strongly marked the barbarous state of the people; a rude, inhospitable country, susceptible indeed of cultivation, but almost every way covered with thick, impenetrable forests. The wild luxuriance of nature was here portrayed in rich attire. The pruning hand of man was hardly seen. The peaceful labours of agriculture were little known.
It has been observed, that those countries most favoured by nature, often make the slowest progress to civilization; and that the people always groan under the weight of a cruel despotism. “This is an effect which springs from a natural cause. Great heat enervates the strength and courage of men, while in cold climates they have a certain vigour of body and mind, which renders them capable of long, painful, great, and intrepid actions. We ought not, then, to be astonished, that the effeminacy of the people in hot climates has almost always rendered them slaves; and that the bravery of those in colder regions has enabled them to maintain their liberties.”
In those countries between the tropics, and especially under the equator, “the excess of heat renders men so slothful and dispirited, that nothing but the most pressing necessity can induce them to perform any laborious duty.” An unconquerable indolence is universally felt and acknowledged. Sunk into the most deplorable degeneracy, they feel no incitements beyond the present moment. In vain may we represent to them the happiness of others. In vain may we attempt to rouse them to a sense of their own weakness. The soul, unwilling to enlarge itself, becomes the prey of every ignoble passion. Strangers to every virtuous and magnanimous sentiment, they are without fame—they are without glory.
The Africans have been always represented as a cruel and perfidious people, lazy, lascivious, faithless in their engagements, innate thieves, without morals, and without any just notion of any one religious duty. Their laws are founded on such principles as naturally flow from so impure a source. The government of the slavecoast of Africa is despotic. The will of the Prince must be obeyed. There is no appeal upon earth from his awful decree. The lives and fortunes of every one are absolutely at his disposal. These tyrants have thought fit to distinguish a number of crimes, but have taken no care to proportionate their degrees of punishment. Every offence is there punished with loss of life or liberty. Captives in war are deliberately murdered, or sold as slaves, as may most indulge the sanguinary caprice of the conqueror. Those convicted of adultery or theft, lose their liberty. He who is in debt, and unable to pay must either sell himself or his children to satisfy the creditor. It may be said, that the loss of life, or liberty, only commences with the injury done to society. I answer, “that in Africa, the civil liberty is already destroyed by the political slavery.” A country like this, doomed to bear the weight of human misery, will always present a history of the most shocking cruelties, and of the severest slavery upon earth.
After viewing this melancholy picture, we ought not to be surprised at the extent of the present intercourse between the Africans and Europeans. For want of proper consideration, and from the influence of certain prejudices, the slave-trade has long been considered the scandal and reproach of every nation who have been anywise engaged in it, but without sufficient reason.
Men who enjoy the benefits of civilization, and who are protected in life, liberty, and property, by the wisdom of humane and equal laws, feel that spirit of liberty, and enthusiastic love of their country, which freedom only can inspire. Talk to them of banishment, and it is more terrible than death. Not so the poor African—he has few motives for wishing any longer to behold the distresses of his country; he is, alas! perhaps, the last witness of the sad misfortunes of his house—Already deprived of family, friends, and every other tender endearment, he has no relief but in banishment or death.
It is pleasant to mark the progress of the barbarian, from the moment he is put on shore in an English colony, to the time he becomes the master of a family, and acquires property of his own. He is first of all clothed (a thing unknown to him in his own country) and then instructed in the necessity of cleanliness. When carried to the plantation, he is shewn how to work in common with others. In a little time he chooses himself a wife, and has a house given to him, much better, allowing for the difference of climate, than what the peasants have in this country. When he is sufficiently instructed in the management of ground, a certain portion is allotted to the exclusive use of himself and family, which, with a moderate share of industry, is not only sufficient to supply every personal want, but leave a considerable part to be sent to market, to be sold, or exchanged for either necessaries or luxuries. The African now, finding himself a family man, and in possession of house and land, he begins to rear hogs, poultry, and other small stock, and either sells them to his master at a fair price, or carries them to market, for which one day in the week is allowed him. …
The African, no longer remembering a country to which he owes nothing but birth, becomes attached to the soil which is so propitious to his wants, and having few cares, and few desires, that are not completely satisfied, there is nothing so terrible to him as a change of situation. The master is the steward, the faithful guardian of all his wants and necessities. In sickness and in health—in youth and in old age, his assiduities are undiminished. The reader will anticipate the happiness of these people—and happy they must be, while their labours are directed by equity and humanity, and not by avarice.
God forbid that I should be an advocate for slavery, or servitude of any description, that can anywise limit the extent of human happiness: at the same time let me caution my countrymen against the weakness and folly of believing that happiness can only be sought in a constitution as free as their own. The history of all nations shew how extremely improper the laws of one country would be for those of another.
from Gordon Turnbull, An Apology of Negro Slavery; or, the West India Planters Vindicated from the Charge of Inhumanity, 1786
As a contrast to the horrid and fictitious picture, which has been drawn of the state of the negroes in the West-Indies, I shall here exhibit a true and more pleasing representation, taken from the life.
To begin then with the period of the Guinea negroe’s arrival in one of the islands.—As soon as the ship that brings them is at anchor, the master or surgeon goes on shore to procure fresh provisions, fruit, and vegetables of all kinds, which are immediately sent on board for the slaves. Parties of them are sent on shore at different times, and conducted a little way into the country, where they frequently meet with many natives of their own country, who speak the same language, and sometimes with near and dear relations, who all appear very cheerful and happy. These agreeable and unexpected meetings are truly affecting, and excite the most tender and pleasing sensations in the breasts of the bystanders. It is not uncommon for these newly arrived guests, to mingle in the dance, or to join in the song, with their country people. If any of them appear dull or desponding, the old negroes endeavour to enliven them, by the most soothing and endearing expressions, telling them, in their own tongue, not to be afraid of the white men; that the white men are very good; that they will get plenty of yam, yam, (their general name for victuals) and that their work will be of the easiest kind. By these means, they are perfectly reconciled to the white men, and to a change of country, and of situation, which many of them declare, to be far superior to that which they had quitted. When the day of sale arrives, they not only meet the planter’s looks, and answer his enquiries, by means of an interpreter, with great firmness, but they try, by offering their stout limbs to his inspection, jumping to shew their activity, and other allurements, to induce those, whose appearance pleases them, to buy them, and to engage, if possible, a preference in their favour. …
As soon as the new negroes are brought home to the plantation, if a planter has purchased them they are properly clothed.—A sufficient quantity of wholesome food is prepared, and served to them three times a day. They are comfortably lodged in some room of the manager’s own house, or in some other convenient place, where they can be immediately under his eye for a few days. During this time they are not put to any kind of labour whatever, but are regularly conducted to bathe in the river, or in the sea, if it is nigh, twice a day. In the evenings they sing and dance, after the manner of their own nation, together with the old negroes who happen to be from the same country, one or two of whom are commonly instrumental performers, in these very noisy, but very joyous assemblies. In a very short time, they are taken into the houses of the principal and best disposed negroes, who adopt one or two of these new subjects into each family, to assist them in all the little domestic offices of cookery, carrying water, wood, &c. This is almost the only work they are employed in for the first two or three months, at the expiration of which, they are put to the easiest kind of labour for some months more. …
Writer, philosopher, and political critic Mary Wollstonecraft’s more famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was published two years after her much shorter work on the rights of men, which briefly discusses the issue of slavery.
Is it necessary to repeat, that there are rights which we received, at our birth, as men, when we were raised above the brute creation by the power of improving ourselves—and that we receive these not from our forefathers, but from God?
My father may dissipate his property, yet I have no right to complain;—but if he should attempt to sell me for a slave, or fetter me with laws contrary to reason; nature, in enabling me to discern good from evil, teaches me to break the ignoble chain. …
But on what principle Mr. Burke could defend American independence, I cannot conceive; for the whole tenor of his … arguments settles slavery on an everlasting foundation. Allowing his servile reverence for antiquity, and prudent attention to self-interest, to have the force which he insists on, it ought never to be abolished; and, because our ignorant forefathers, not understanding the native dignity of man, sanctioned a traffic that outrages every suggestion of reason and religion, we are to submit to the inhuman custom, and term an atrocious insult to humanity the love of our country and a proper submission to those laws which secure our property.—Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English liberty. And to this selfish principle every nobler one is sacrificed. …
Poet, critic, and editor Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) was an outspoken abolitionist; this poem was written after the failure of the first abolition bill Wilberforce introduced to Parliament.
Cease, Wilberforce, to urge thy generous aim!
Thy country knows the sin, and stands the shame!
The preacher, poet, senator in vain
Has rattled in her sight the Negro’s chain;
With his deep groans assailed her startled ear,
And rent the veil that hid his constant tear;
Forced her averted eyes his stripes to scan,
Beneath the bloody scourge laid bare the man,
Claimed Pity’s tear, urged Conscience’s strong control,
And flashed conviction on her shrinking soul.
The Muse too, soon awaked, with ready tongue
At Mercy’s shrine applausive paeans rung;
And Freedom’s eager sons, in vain foretold
A new Astraean reign, an age of gold:
She knows and she persists—Still Afric bleeds,
Unchecked, the human traffic still proceeds;
She stamps her infamy to future time,
And on her hardened forehead seals the crime.
In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possest
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A nation’s eloquence, combined, must fail:
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try;
The plausive argument, the daring lie,
The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds,
Th’acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds:
Bane of ingenuous minds, th’unfeeling sneer,
Which, sudden, turns to stone the falling tear[.] …
The engravings reproduced here are among sixteen plates prepared by William Blake in 1792–93 as illustrations for John Stedman’s Narrative of Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).
Poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was a strong proponent of abolition in his youth, though his views on the issue became more conservative later in his life. The article from which these excerpts are taken was originally delivered as a lecture in Bristol in 1795, and he published it the following year in his magazine The Watchman.
Whence arise our miseries? Whence arise our vices? From imaginary wants. No man is wicked without temptation; no man is wretched without a cause. But if each among us confined his wishes to the actual necessaries and real comforts of life, we should preclude all the causes of complaint and all the motives to iniquity. …
I have dwelt anxiously on this subject, with a particular view, to the slave-trade, which, I knew, has insinuated in the minds of many, uneasy doubts respecting the existence of a beneficent deity. And indeed the evils arising from the formation of imaginary wants, have in no instance been so dreadfully exemplified, as in this inhuman traffic. We receive from the West-India Islands sugars, rum, cotton, logwood, cocoa, coffee, pimento, ginger, indigo, mahogany, and conserves. Not one of these articles are necessary; indeed with the exception of cotton and mahogany we cannot truly call them even useful: and not one of them is at present attainable by the poor and labouring part of society. In return we export vast quantities of necessary tools, raiment, and defensive weapons, with great stores of provision. So that in this trade as in most others the poor are employed with unceasing toil first to raise, and then to send away the comforts, which they themselves absolutely want, in order to procure idle superfluities for their masters. If this trade had never existed, no one human being would have been less comfortably clothed, housed, or nourished. Such is its value—they who would estimate the price which we pay for it, may consult the evidence delivered before the House of Commons. … It is my present purpose to consider the objections of the abolition of this commerce—which may be reduced to the five following—First, that the abolition would be useless, since though we should not carry it on, other nations would. 2. That the Africans are better treated and more happy in the plantations than in their native country. 3. That the revenue would be greatly injured. 4. That the right of property would be invaded. 5. That this is not a fit opportunity.
- That if England abolish the slave-trade, other nations will carry it on. The same argument has been adduced by the French planters: a sufficient proof of its fallacy. Somebody must begin; and there is little reason to fear, that a wise and politic example will not be followed. As society is constituted, there will be always highway robberies: it is useless therefore to prevent any one man from committing them. Fortunately for travellers this logic will not hold good in law. But although it cannot operate in favour of little rogues, it appears to possess wonderful power in the higher circles of villainy. …
- That the slaves are more humanely treated and live more happily in the plantations than in their native country. If any incredulous person should entertain a doubt of this, the slave-merchants, slave-holders, and slave-drivers, together with the manufacturers of neckcollars and thumb-screws, are ready and willing to take their bible oaths of it!! When treated with tolerable humanity the human race, as well as other animals, multiply. The Negroes multiply in their native country: they do not multiply in the West-India Islands; for if they did, the slave-trade would have been abolished long ago by its inutility. This is a fact which no perjury can overwhelm, which no sophistry can undermine. …
- That the revenue would be injured. To the friends of humanity this is indeed a cogent argument against the abolition. They will doubtless reflect, how worthily this revenue has been employed for these last hundred years—they will review with delight wastelands cultivated, sciences publicly protested and rewarded, and population increased, and the peasantry of England and Ireland instructed in useful learning, and humanized. The universal plenty, which this revenue has been applied to scatter and secure, they will recognize in every land, hamlet, and cottage. …
- That the right of property would be injured. Yes perhaps, if immediate emancipation had been the object of Mr. Wilberforce’s bill. But how would the right of property be invaded by a law which should leave the estate and everything on it untouched and only prevent the owner from forcing men to work for him? From forcing men to leave their friends and country, and live as slaves in a climate so unwholesome or beneath a usage so unnatural, that contrary to the universal law of life they annually diminish? Can a man possess a right to commit actual and virtual murder? To shorten and prevent existence? …
- This is not the time. This not the time? “The French,” says Abbé Sieyès, “hear with delight of the numerous armaments which England sends to certain death in the West-India islands. We make war there more effectually as well as economically by sending over a few adventurous officers to preach the rights of man to the negroes, and furnish them with weapons to assert those rights.” What can prevent the success of these intrigues among the slaves, but the most active humanity on the part of their present masters?
Such have been the cosmetics with which our parliamentary orators have endeavoured to conceal the deformities of a commerce, which is blotched all over with one leprosy of evil. …
The Abbé Raynal computes that at the time of his writing, nine millions of slaves had been consumed by the Europeans—add one million since (for it is near thirty years since his book was first published) and recollect, that for one procured ten at least are slaughtered, that a fifth die in the passage, and a third in the seasoning; and the calculation will amount to one hundred and eighty million! Ye who have joined in this confederacy, ask of yourselves this fearful question—“if the God of Justice inflict on us that mass only of anguish which we have wantonly heaped on our brethren, what must a state of retribution be?” But who are they who have joined in this tartarean confederacy? Who are these kidnappers, and assassins? In all reasoning neglecting the intermediate links we attribute the final effect to the first cause. And what is the first and constantly acting cause of the slave-trade? That cause, by which it exists and deprived of which it would immediately cease? Is it not self-evidently the consumption of its products? And does not then the guilt rest on the consumers? And is it not an allowed axiom in morality, that wickedness may be multiplied, but cannot be divided; and that the guilt of all attaches to each one who is knowingly an accomplice? Think not of the slave-captains and slave-holders! These very men, their darkened minds, and brutalized hearts, will prove one part of the dreadful charge against you! They are more to be pitied than the slaves, because more depraved. I address myself to you who, independently of all political distinctions, profess yourself Christians! As you hope to live with Christ hereafter, you are commanded to do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you. Would you choose that a slave merchant should incite an intoxicated chieftain to make war on your country, and murder your wife and children before your face, or drag them with yourself to the market? Would you choose to be sold? To have the hot iron hiss upon your breasts, after having been crammed into the hold of a ship with so many fellow-victims, that the heat and stench, arising from your diseased bodies, should rot the very planks? Would you, that others should do this unto you? And if you shudder with selfish horror at the bare idea, do you yet dare be the occasion of it to others? …
As the following excerpt from poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals indicates, brutality on slave ships could also be directed at members of the crew.
Monday Morning [15 March 1802] We sat reading the poems and I read a little German. … During W’s absence a sailor who was travelling from Liverpool to Whitehaven called. He was faint and pale when he knocked at the door, a young man very well dressed. We sat by the kitchen fire talking with him for 2 hours—he told us most interesting stories of his life. His name was Isaac Chapel—he had been at sea since he was 15 years old. He was by trade a sail-maker. His last voyage was to the coast of Guinea. He had been on board a slave ship the captain’s name Maxwell where one man had been killed a boy put to lodge with the pigs & was half eaten, one boy set to watch in the hot sun till he dropped down dead. He had been cast away in North America and had travelled 30 days among the Indians where he had been well treated. He had twice swum from a king’s ship in the night & escaped, he said he would rather be in hell than be pressed. He was now going to wait in England to appear against Captain Maxwell—“Oh he’s a rascal, sir, he ought to be put in the papers!” The poor man had not been in bed since Friday night—he left Liverpool at 2 o’clock on Saturday morning. He had called at a farm house to beg victuals and had been refused. The woman said she would give him nothing—“ Won’t you? Then I can’t help it.” He was excessively like my brother John.
In 1823, Wilberforce and Clarkson established a new organization to lead the mainstream abolition campaign: the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, more commonly known as the Antislavery Society. The same year, an Antislavery Society member introduced a parliamentary motion to gradually secure the “extinction of slavery altogether, by rendering all the negro children, born after a certain day, free.”
The more radical position—that emancipation should be immediate, not “gradual”—was at first advocated primarily by the members of women’s abolitionist societies, and especially by the Quaker and reformer Elizabeth Heyrick, whose pamphlet on the issue is excerpted below. Despite resistance from Wilberforce, who opposed not only immediate emancipation but also the involvement of women in political matters, Heyrick and her associates pressured the Antislavery Society into removing “Gradual” from its official name and adopting immediate abolition as its stated goal.
… We that hear, and read, and approve, and applaud the powerful appeals, the irrefragable arguments against the Slave Trade, and against slavery—are we ourselves sincere, or hypocritical? Are we the true friends of justice, or do we only cant about it? To which party do we really belong—to the friends of emancipation, or of perpetual slavery? Every individual belongs to one party or the other; not speculatively, or professionally merely, but practically. The perpetuation of slavery in our West India colonies is not an abstract question, to be settled between the Government and the Planters—it is a question in which we are all implicated; we are all guilty (with shame and compunction let us admit the opprobrious truth) of supporting and perpetuating slavery. The West Indian planter and the people of this country stand in the same moral relation to each other as the thief and the receiver of stolen goods. The planter refuses to set his wretched captive at liberty; treats him as a beast of burden; compels his reluctant unremunerated labour under the lash of the cart-whip—why?—because WE furnish the stimulant to all this injustice, rapacity, and cruelty, by PURCHASING ITS PRODUCE. Heretofore, it may have been thoughtlessly and unconsciously—but now this palliative is removed; the veil of ignorance is rent aside; the whole nation must now divide itself into the active supporters, and the active opposers of slavery; there is no longer any ground for a neutral party to stand upon. …
… Are there no tests to prove our sincerity—no sacrifices to be offered in confirmation of our zeal? Yes, there is one—but it is in itself so small and insignificant that it seems almost burlesque to dignify it with the name of sacrifice—it is ABSTINENCE FROM THE USE OF WEST INDIAN PRODUCTIONS, sugar especially, in the cultivation of which slave labour is chiefly occupied. Small, however, and insignificant as the sacrifice may appear, it would at once give the death blow to West Indian slavery. When there is no longer a market for the productions of slave labour, then, and not till then, will the slaves be emancipated. …
“But (it will be objected) it is not an immediate, but a gradual emancipation, which the most enlightened and judicious friends of humanity call for; as a measure best calculated, in their judgment, to promote the real interests of the slave, as well as his master; the former not being in a condition to make a right use of his freedom, were it suddenly restored to him.” This, it must be admitted, appears not only the general, but almost universal sentiment of the abolitionists; to oppose it, therefore, may seem a most presumptuous as well as hopeless attempt. But truth and justice are stubborn and inflexible; they yield neither to numbers or authority.
The history of emancipation in St. Domingo, and of the conduct of the emancipated slaves for thirty years subsequent to that event (as detailed in Clarkson’s admirable pamphlet, on the necessity of improving the condition of our West Indian slaves), is a complete refutation of all the elaborate arguments which have been artfully advanced to discredit the design of immediate emancipation. No instance has been recorded in these important annals, of the emancipated slaves (not the gradually, but the immediately emancipated slaves) having abused their freedom. On the contrary, it is frequently asserted in the course of the narrative that the negroes continued to work upon all the plantations as quietly as before emancipation. …
In the face of such a body of evidence, the detaining our West Indian slaves in bondage is a continued acting of the same atrocious injustice which first kidnapped and tore them from their kindred and native soil, and robbed them of that sacred unalienable right which no considerations, how plausible soever, can justify the withholding. We have no right, on any pretext of expediency or pretended humanity, to say—“because you have been made a slave, and thereby degraded and debased, therefore I will continue to hold you in bondage, until you have acquired a capacity to make a right use of your liberty.” As well might you say to a poor wretch, gasping and languishing in a pest house, “here will I keep you, till I have given you a capacity for the enjoyment of pure air.” …
… Should the wretched African find the moment for breaking his own chains, and asserting his own freedom, he may well be expected to take terrible vengeance—to push the law of retaliation to its utmost extreme. But, when presented with his freedom—when the sacred rights of humanity are restored to him, would that be the moment for rage, for revenge and murder? To polished and Christianized Europeans, such abuses of liberty may appear natural and inevitable, since their own history abounds with them. But the history of negro emancipation abundantly proves that no such consequences are to be apprehended from the poor uncultivated and despised African. …
The latter half of the eighteenth century saw numerous slave uprisings in colonial holdings throughout the West Indies and South America, notably in Panama, Jamaica, Surinam, and Guyana. But the only successful uprising took place in St. Domingue, the French colony that would become Haiti. Beginning in 1791 and ending in 1804, the Haitian Revolution spanned thirteen years and led to the foundation of a black state free from slavery.
In the decades leading up to the Revolution, the disdainful and violent treatment of the slaves on St. Domingue created a situation of barely contained hatred against the white masters—whom the slaves outnumbered by at least a 10 to 1 ratio. Slaves were treated with extreme cruelty; workdays as long as twenty hours were enforced by brutal supervision and corporal punishment. The following selections are taken from an account by Alexandre-Stanislas de Wimpffen (1748–1819), a German sea captain, soldier, and explorer, in which he describes the social conditions that led to the 1791 uprising.
from Letter 12 [May 1789]
I have determined, Sir, to give you a description of one of my days; it will be the simplest method of giving you, once for all, a summary idea of the manner of living at St. Domingo, in what is called a town. …
The cracking of whips, the smothered cries, and the indistinct groans of the negroes, who never see the day break but to curse it; who are never recalled to a feeling of their existence but by sufferings—this, Sir, is what takes place of the crowing of the early cock; and by the strains of this infernal harmony, was I awakened out of my first sleep at St. Domingo. I started, screamed, and fancied that I had waked in the gulf of Tartarus, between Prometheus and Ixion—And I was among Christians! Among the worshippers of a God—who died to mitigate the sorrows of the afflicted! Custom has already weakened the effect of the impression; it will never obliterate it altogether.
A walk of an hour served to dissipate the chagrin of this gloomy awakening. I came back in time to see a troop of male and female negroes lying against the wall, or squatting upon their heels, and waiting amidst a universal yawn, for the master’s giving the signal of going to work, by loud cracks of the arceau, on their back and shoulders—for, you will hardly conceive, and indeed it cost six months observation to convince me of the truth of it, there are negroes who must absolutely be beaten before they can be put in motion. The arceau is the true key of this species of watch—If I had chosen to take the word of the masters for it, I should have looked no farther for the cause of this singular disposition of the slaves, than to their natural sloth and inactivity: but on considering the matter a little more narrowly, I fancied I could see that these dispositions were marvelously seconded by the inactivity and sloth of their masters, who, for the greater part, too ignorant and too unindulgent to comprehend that the vices of education can only be subdued by time and patience, find the plan of beating more practicable than that of instructing! The natural consequence of which is, that the negro, once accustomed to this mode of treatment, can only be wrought on by rigour and severity. I have persisted, month after month, in lavishing on those who attended me, nothing but patience, gentleness, and good offices of every kind—all were in vain: the bent was taken, and nothing was left me, after all my endeavours, but the alternative of waiting on myself, or of having recourse to the arceau. …
from Letter 23 [March 1790]
If this expedition has increased my local knowledge, and corrected some of my opinions, the alteration, Sir, has not always been favourable to the inhabitants of Saint Domingo. Amongst a variety of anecdotes, some of which may be exaggerated or untrue, there is one which the multiplicity, and respectability of the proofs do not permit me to call in doubt, in spite of its atrocity. A lady, whom I have seen, a young lady, and one of the handsomest in the island, gave a grand dinner. Furious at seeing a dish of pastry brought to the table overdone, she ordered her negro cook to be seized, and thrown into the oven, yet glowing with heat—And this horrible Magæra, whose name I suppress out of respect to her family; this infernal fiend, whom public execration ought to drive with every mark of abhorrence from society; this worthy rival of the too famous Chaperon, is followed, and admired—for she is rich and beautiful!
So much for what I have heard, and now for what I have seen.
The day after my return, I was walking before the casa of a planter with one of his neighbours, when we overheard him bid a negro go into the inclosure of this very neighbour, pull up two young trees which he pointed out to him, and re-plant them immediately on a terrace he was then forming.
The negro went: the neighbour followed him, surprised him in the fact, and brought him to his master, whom I had by this time joined, in the hope of witnessing a scene of confusion which promised to be amusing.
Conceive, Sir, what passed in my mind, when, on the complaint of the neighbour, I heard the master coldly order another of his negroes to tie the pretended culprit to a ladder, and give him an hundred lashes! We were both of us struck with such astonishment, that, stupefied, pale, and shuddering, while the unhappy negro received the barbarous chastisement in silence, we looked at one another without being able to utter a single word—And he who ordered, he who thus punished his own crime on the blind instrument of his will; at once the dastardly perpetrator and the unfeeling witness of the most atrocious injustice, is here one of the first organs of the law, the official protector of innocence! Heavens! If a pitiful respect for decorum forbids me to devote the name of this monster to eternal infamy, let me at least be permitted to hope that Divine Justice will hear the cries of the sufferer, and sooner or later accumulate on the tyrants’ head, all the weight of its vengeance! …
In Britain, news of the Haitian Revolution elicited mixed responses. Most abolitionists were sympathetic to the Revolution and saw it as further proof that societies built on slavery were inherently unstable; few, however, were willing to support the Revolution outright, particularly as the bloodshed escalated. For plantation owners, sugar merchants, and many others in England, the violence of the Haitian Revolution was associated with the grisly scenes enacted in Revolutionary France, and compassion for the slaves was either absent or tempered by fear of civil unrest.
The following article, from the British evening paper the Star, begins with a transcription of the resolutions made at a meeting of the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants, an organization founded in London in 1780 to lobby for the interests of sugar merchants and plantation owners in the West Indies. The meeting was held in response to the uprising in St. Domingue. Following the transcription of the meeting, the anonymous commentator of the Star, writing under the pseudonym “Common Sense,” argues for a different interpretation of the causes of the Haitian Revolution.
Resolution 1st and 3rd, Passed Nov. 3
Resolved,
From the official papers now laid before this meeting, as well as from other accounts, it appears that the very alarming insurrection of the Negroes which has arisen, and is believed yet to exist in the French colony of St. Domingo, and which has already occasioned much bloodshed and destruction, originates not solely in political differences consequent on the late changes of government in France, but rather in a mutinous disposition recently discovered, though long dreaded among the Negroes, and which has been industriously promoted by communications between mischievous or misguided persons in this country and in France, subversive of that subordination on which entirely depends the welfare of the Negroes themselves, and of every other inhabitant of the West-India Colonies.
Resolved,
That dreadful consequences may result from the insurrection in St. Domingo to the British West-India islands in general, and particularly to the Island of Jamaica, should the revolt be of long duration, or should it end (as, from the distractions prevailing, and from the small effective military force now in the Island, there is too much cause to fear) in the desertion of that colony by the Europeans. …
Charged, as the West Indians have lately been, with upholding the most arbitrary principles and practices, it was natural to suppose that the insurrection in St. Domingo, though evidently arising out of the pernicious system of slavery, will be turned by them into an argument for their own side of the question.
It is one of the evils of slavery and arbitrary power, that every new danger and insurrection is pleaded as a ground for still farther severity, and that serves only to increase the misery … of those who have been already too much oppressed. Nay, it often happens, that the oppressor affects to blame himself for an overstrained lenity in times past, in order to justify the stricter measures he is about to pursue. Recrimination on every friend of freedom is another natural consequence of a man’s finding himself in danger from his own injured slaves—Hence all the evil effects of slavery are transferred to the very people who, foreboding these effects, had been attempting to avert them.
Another evil of slavery is, that events in other countries insignificant, become dangerous and portentous in places where slavery exists; and that events carrying only a smaller degree of evil in them, threaten a land of slavery with total ruin and desolation. On this principle the French Revolution seems to have wrought ten-fold mischief in those parts of their empire where slavery is tolerated. The British West Indians, however, curiously enough discover, that this tremendous convulsion in the French Islands is not at all the effect of slavery itself, is not to be ascribed to the French Revolution, but rather, as they say, “to communications between mischievous or misguided persons in this country and France, subversive of that SUBORDINATION on which entirely depends the safety of the Negroes themselves, and of every other inhabitant of the West-India Colonies.”
It is here evidently implied, that certain questions which have been agitated in England are the cause of the insurrection in St. Domingo—A supposition which the French themselves do not seem to have made, but which, if true, would only serve to exhibit the extreme insecurity of countries subject to slavery, in the strongest light; for, if the mere discussion of the question of importing slaves, in a foreign and independent country, has been sufficient to cause a general insurrection in the French Islands, how wretched a system must it be which exposes men to dangers so trivial, … and against which it is so impossible to provide! …
COMMON SENSE.
When Haiti became an independent country, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758–1806) declared himself the state’s Governor General-for-life; he then ruled as Emperor of Haiti until his assassination in 1806. One of the earliest state documents printed by the new country was his “Liberty or Death” speech, excerpted below. In part, the speech is offered as a justification for a series of massacres of the remaining white population of Haiti that Dessalines had ordered in the early months of 1804.
Crimes, the most atrocious, such as were until then unheard of, and would cause nature to shudder, have been perpetrated. The measure was overheaped. At length the hour of vengeance has arrived, and the implacable enemies of the rights of man have suffered the punishment due to their crimes.
My arm, raised over their heads, has too long delayed to strike. At that signal, which the justice of God has urged, your hands, righteously armed, have brought the axe upon the ancient tree of slavery and prejudices. In vain had time, and more especially the infernal politics of Europeans, surrounded it with triple brass; you have stripped it of its armour; you have placed it upon your hearts, that you may become (like your natural enemies) cruel and merciless. Like an overflowing mighty torrent that tears down all opposition, your vengeful fury has carried away every thing in its impetuous course. Thus perish all tyrants over innocence, all oppressors of mankind!
What then? bent for many ages under an iron yoke; the sport of the passions of men, of their injustice, and of the caprice of fortune; mutilated victims of the cupidity of white Frenchmen? after having fattened with our toils these insatiate blood-suckers, with a patience and resignation unexampled, we should again have seen that sacrilegious horde make an attempt upon our destruction, without any distinction of sex or age; and we, men without energy, of no virtue, or no delicate sensibility, should not we have plunged in their breast the dagger of desperation? Where is that vile Haytian, so unworthy of his regeneration, who thinks he has not accomplished the decrees of the Eternal, by exterminating these bloody thirsty tigers! If there is one, let him fly; indignant nature discards him from our bosom; let him hide his shame far from hence; the air we breathe is not suited to his gross organs; it is the pure air of Liberty, august and triumphant.
Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, outrage for outrage. Yes, I have saved my country—I have avenged America. The avowal I make of it in the face of earth and heaven, constitutes my pride and my glory. Of what consequence to me is the opinion which contemporary and future generations will pronounce upon my conduct? I have performed my duty; I enjoy my own approbation; for me that is sufficient. But what do I say? The preservation of my unfortunate brothers, the testimony of my own conscience are not my only recompence: I have seen two classes of men, born to cherish, assist and succour one another—mixed, in a word, and blended together—crying for vengeance, and disputing the honour of the first blow. …