he
vengeance of heaven upon the undertakers." Captain Hawkins promised to
comply with the injunctions of Elizabeth in this respect, but he did not
keep his word; for when he went to Africa again, he seized many of the
inhabitants and carried them off as slaves, which occasioned Hill, in
the account he gives of his second voyage, to use these remarkable
words:--"Here began the horrid practice of forcing the Africans into
slavery, an injustice and barbarity which, so sure as there is vengeance
in heaven for the worst of crimes, will some time be the destruction of
all who allow or encourage it." That the trade should have been suffered
to continue under such a princess, and after such solemn expressions as
those which she has been described to have uttered, can be only
attributed to the pains taken by those concerned in it to keep her
ignorant of the truth.

From England I now pass over to France. Labat, a Roman missionary, in
his account of the isles of America, mentions that Louis the Thirteenth
was very uneasy when he was about to issue the edict by which all
Africans coming into his colonies were to be made slaves, and that this
uneasiness continued till he was assured that the introduction of them
in this capacity into his foreign dominions was the readiest way of
converting them to the principles of the Christian religion.

These, then, were the first forerunners in the great cause of the
abolition of the Slave Trade: nor have their services towards it been of
small moment; for, in the first place, they have enabled those who came
after them, and who took an active interest in the same cause, to state
the great authority of their opinions and of their example. They have
enabled them, again, to detail the history connected with these, in
consequence of which circumstances have been laid open which it is of
great importance to know; for have they not enabled them to state that
the African Slave Trade never would have been permitted to exist but for
the ignorance of those in authority concerning it--that at its
commencement there was a revolting of nature against it--a suspicion, a
caution, a fear, both as to its unlawfulness and its effects? Have they
not enabled them to state that falsehoods were advanced, and these
concealed under the mask of religion, to deceive those who had the power
to suppress it? Have they not enabled them to state that this trade
began in piracy, and that it was continued upon the principles