are agitated between hope and fear--till length of absence
confirms the latter, and they are immediately plunged into inconceivable
misery and distress.

"If this instance, then, is sufficiently melancholy of itself, and is at
all an act of oppression, how complicated will our guilt appear, who are
the means of snatching away thousands annually in the same manner, and who
force them and their families into the same unhappy situation, without
either remorse or shame!"

Having proceeded to show, in a more particular manner than I can detail
here, how, by means of the Slave-trade, we oppressed the stranger, I made
an inquiry into the other branch of the subject, or how far we had a
knowledge of his heart.

To elucidate this point, I mentioned several specific instances, out of
those which I had collected in my journey, and which I could depend upon as
authentic, of honour--gratitude--fidelity--filial, fraternal, and conjugal
affection--and of the finest sensibility, on the part of those, who had
been brought into our colonies from Africa, in the character of slaves, and
then I proceeded for a while in the following words:--

"If, then, we oppress the stranger, as I have shown, and if, by a knowledge
of his heart, we find that he is a person of the same passions and feelings
as ourselves, we are certainly breaking, by means of the prosecution of the
Slave-trade, that fundamental principle of Christianity, which says, that
we shall not do that unto another, which we wish should not be done unto
ourselves, and, I fear, cutting ourselves off from all expectation of the
Divine blessing. For how inconsistent is our conduct! We come into the
temple of God; we fall prostrate before him; we pray to him, that he will
have mercy upon us. But how shall he have mercy upon us, who have had no
mercy upon others! We pray to him, again, that he will deliver us from
evil. But how shall he deliver us from evil, who are daily invading the
right of the injured African, and heaping misery on his head!"

I attempted, lastly, to show, that, though the sin of the Slave-trade had
been hitherto a sin of ignorance, and might therefore have so far been
winked at, yet as the crimes and miseries belonging to it became known, it
would attach even to those who had no concern in it, if they suffered it to
continue either without notice or reproach, or if they did not exert
themselves in a reasonable manner for its suppression. I noticed
particularly, t