arly from the coast of Africa. This is confirmed in
Anderson's history of Trade and Commerce, lately printed; where it is
said,[A] "That England supplies her American colonies with Negroe
slaves, amounting in number to above one hundred thousand every year."
When the vessels are full freighted with slaves, they sail for our
plantations in America, and may be two or three months in the voyage;
during which time, from the filth and stench that is among them,
distempers frequently break out, which carry off commonly a fifth, a
fourth, yea sometimes a third or more of them: so that taking all the
slaves together, that are brought on board our ships yearly, one may
reasonably suppose, that at least ten thousand of them die on the
voyage. And in a printed account of the state of the Negroes in our
plantations, it is supposed that a fourth part, more or less, die at the
different islands, in what is called the seasoning. Hence it may be
presumed, that at a moderate computation of the slaves who are purchased
by our African merchants in a year, near thirty thousand die upon the
voyage, and in the seasoning. Add to this, the prodigious number who are
killed in the incursions and intestine wars, by which the Negroes
procure the number of slaves wanted to load the vessels. How dreadful
then is this slave-trade, whereby so many thousands of our fellow
creatures, free by nature, endued with the same rational faculties, and
called to be heirs of the same salvation with us, lose their lives, and
are, truly and properly speaking, murdered every year! For it is not
necessary, in order to convict a man of murder, to make it appear that
he had an _intention_ to commit murder; whoever does, by unjust force or
violence, deprive another of his liberty, and, while he hath him in his
power, continues so to oppress him by cruel treatment, as eventually to
occasion his death, is actually guilty of murder. It is enough to make a
thoughtful person tremble, to think what a load of guilt lies upon our
nation on this account; and that the blood of thousands of poor innocent
creatures, murdered every year in the prosecution of this wicked trade,
cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance. Were we to hear or read of a nation
that destroyed every year, in some other way, as many human creatures as
perish in this trade, we should certainly consider them as a very
bloody, barbarous people; if it be alledged, that the legislature hath
encouraged, and still does enc