day's report
Of wrong and outrage, with which this earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man.

COWPER.

While the Portuguese were exploring Africa, in 1442, Prince Henry
ordered Anthony Gonsalez to carry back certain Moorish prisoners, whom
he had seized two years before near Cape Bajador: this order was obeyed,
and Gonsalez received from the Moors, in exchange for the captives, ten
negroes, and a quantity of gold dust. Unluckily, this wicked speculation
proved profitable, and other Portuguese were induced to embark in it.

In 1492, the West India islands were discovered by Columbus. The
Spaniards, dazzled with the acquisition of a new world and eager to come
into possession of their wealth, compelled the natives of Hispaniola
to dig in the mines. The native Indians died rapidly, in consequence of
hard work and cruel treatment; and thus a new market was opened for
the negro slaves captured by the Portuguese. They were accordingly
introduced as early as 1503. Those who bought and those who sold were
alike prepared to trample on the rights of their fellow-beings, by that
most demoralizing of all influences, the accursed love of gold.

Cardinal Ximenes, while he administered the government, before the
accession of Charles the Fifth, was petitioned to allow a regular
commerce in African negroes. But he rejected the proposal with
promptitude and firmness, alike honorable to his head and heart. This
earliest friend of the Africans, living in a comparatively unenlightened
age, has peculiar claims upon our gratitude and reverence. In 1517,
Charles the Fifth granted a patent for an annual supply of four thousand
negroes to the Spanish islands. He probably soon became aware of the
horrible and ever-increasing evils, attendant upon this traffic; for
twenty-five years after he emancipated every negro in his dominions.
But when he resigned his crown and retired to a monastery, the colonists
resumed their shameless tyranny.

Captain Hawkins, afterward Sir John Hawkins, was the first Englishman,
who disgraced himself and his country by this abominable trade. Assisted
by some rich people in London, he fitted out three ships, and sailed to
the African coast, where he burned and plundered the towns, and carried
off three hundred of the defenceless inhabitants to Hispaniola.

Elizabeth afterwards authorized a similar adventure with one of her own
vessels. "She expressed her conc