nking blood,"--with a full capacity, and a
perfect fitness on their parts, to enlighten, to comfort, and to save
her--their mother, doubly requiring their care, that she knows not
that she is blind and naked! And yet they linger on a distant shore;
and fill the air with empty murmurs, of time and earth, and its poor
vanities; and Christian men around them caress and applaud them for
their heathen hard-heartedness; and Christian communities, in their
strange infatuation, send missions to them, to prevent them from
becoming the truest missionaries that the earth could furnish!
Shadows that we are, shadows that we pursue! It was, in the fifth
place, the only effectual and practical mode of putting an end to the
slave trade. There was, indeed, another way--by stopping the demand.
But while they disputed the means of stopping the demand, there was
another way--the stopping of the supply. This had long been an object
dear to several nations. The government of Britain, the government of
America, and the governments of several other states, had sent several
cruisers to stop the supply; but would any slaves be taken from
Africa, if there was even a single city on the western coast, with ten
thousand inhabitants, and three vessels of war at their command? They
would put an end to the trade the moment they were able to chastise
the pirates, or make reprisals on the nations to which they belonged.
Why is it we never hear of the stealing of an Englishman, a German, or
a Turk? Because the thief knows that reprisals would be made, or that
he or some of his countrymen would be chastised or stolen in return.
So that all that was required, was to plant a city on the west coast
of Africa, and this would give protection to the population of that
country. Nothing is plainer, than that any nation which will make
reprisals, will have none of the inhabitants stolen. If reprisals were
made effective, the slave trade would be immediately stopped. It is
the course pursued by Mr. Thompson and his friends, not the course
pursued by us, which is likely to continue the slave trade. On one
hundred leagues of African coast, it is already to a great degree
suppressed; and if we had been aided as the importance of the cause
demanded, instead of being resisted with untiring activity, this
blessed object might now have been granted to the prayers of
Christendom.

* * * * *

Mr. THOMPSON earnestly hoped that every word which