circumstance occasioned captain
Smith to come forward. He wrote a letter to his friend Mr. Hill, in which
he stated that he had seen those things, while in the West Indies, which
Mr. Ramsay had asserted to exist, but which had been so boldly denied. He
gave also permission to Mr. Hill to publish this letter. Too much praise
cannot be bestowed on captain Smith, for thus standing forth in a noble
cause, and in behalf of an injured character.

The last of the necessary forerunners and coadjutors of this class, whom I
am to mention, was our much-admired poet, Cowper; and a great coadjutor he
was, when we consider what value was put upon his sentiments, and the
extraordinary circulation of his works. There are few persons, who have not
been properly impressed by the following lines:

"My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
T'inforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplor'd
As human Nature's broadest, foulest blot,--
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
No! dear as freedom is,--and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above all price,--
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no Slaves at home--then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;