nds torment, no Christians thirst for gold."
Thomson also, in his Seasons, marks this traffic as destructive and cruel,
introducing the well-known fact of sharks following the vessels employed in
it;
"Increasing still the sorrows of those storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with three-fold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along,
And from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,
Demands his share of prey, demands themselves.
The stormy fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal."
Neither was Richard Savage forgetful in his poems of the Injured Africans:
he warns their oppressors of a day of retribution for their barbarous
conduct. Having personified Public Spirit, he makes her speak on the
subject in the following manner:--
"Let by my specious name no tyrants rise,
And cry, while they enslave, they civilize!
Know, Liberty and I are still the same
Congenial--ever mingling flame with flame!
Why must I Afric's sable children see
Vended for slaves, though born by nature free,
The nameless tortures cruel minds invent
Those to subject whom Nature equal meant?
If these you dare (although unjust success
Empow'rs you now unpunish'd to oppress),
Revolving empire you and yours may doom--
(Rome all subdu'd--yet Vandals vanquish'd Rome)
Yes--Empire may revolt--give them the day,
And yoke may yoke, and blood may blood repay."
Wallis, in his System of the Laws of Scotland, maintains, that "neither men
nor governments have a right to sell those of their own species. Men and
their liberty are neither purchaseable nor saleable." And, after arguing
the case, he says, "This is the law of nature, which is obligatory on all
men, at all times, and in all places.--Would not any of us, who should be
snatched by pirates from his native land, think himself cruelly abused, and
at all times entitled to be free? Have not these unfortunate Africans, who
meet with the same cruel fate, the same right? Are they not men as well as
we? And have they not the same sensibility? Let us not therefore defend or
support an usage, which is contrary to all the laws of humanity."
In the year
|