holding such
property; and now, when the knowledge of the case of the ship Zong was
spreading, he published that letter under the title of Fragment of an
Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes.

In this same year, Dr. Porteus, Bishop of Chester, but now Bishop of
London, came forward as a new advocate for the natives of Africa. The
way in which he rendered them service, was by preaching a sermon in
their behalf, before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Of
the wide circulation of this sermon, I shall say something in another
place, but much more of the enlightened and pious author of it, who from
this time never failed to aid, at every opportunity, the cause which he
had so ably undertaken.

In the year 1784, Dr. GREGORY produced his _Essays, Historical and
Moral_. He took an opportunity of disseminating in these a
circumstantial knowledge of the Slave Trade, and an equal abhorrence of
it at the same time. He explained the manner of procuring slaves in
Africa; the treatment of them on the passage, (in which he mentioned the
case of the ship Zong) and the wicked and cruel treatment of them in the
colonies. He recited and refuted also the various arguments adduced in
defence of the trade. He showed that it was destructive to our seamen.
He produced many weighty arguments also against the slavery itself. He
proposed clauses for an Act of Parliament for the abolition of both;
showing the good both to England and her colonies from such a measure,
and that a trade might be substituted in Africa, in various articles,
for that which he proposed to suppress. By means of the diffusion of
light like this, both of a moral and political nature; Dr. Gregory is
entitled to be ranked among the benefactors to the African race.

In the same year, Gilbert Wakefield preached a sermon at Richmond, in
Surrey, where, speaking of the people of this nation, he says, "Have we
been as renowned for a liberal communication of our religion and our
laws as for the possession of them! Have we navigated and conquered to
save, to civilize, and to instruct; or to oppress, to plunder, and to
destroy? Let India and Africa give the answer to these questions. The
one we have exhausted of her wealth and her inhabitants by violence, by
famine, and by every species of tyranny and murder. The children of the
other we daily carry from off the land of their nativity; like sheep to
the slaughter, to return no more. We tear them from every obje