n wait to
catch men, from whence he was transported to America. The remembrance of
his family, friends, and other connections, left behind, which he never
expected to see any more, were the principal cause of his dejection and
grief." Many cases, equally affecting, might be here mentioned; but one
more instance, which fell under the notice of a person of credit, will
suffice. One of these wretched creatures, then about 50 years of age,
informed him, "That being violently torn from a wife and several
children in Guinea, he was sold in Jamaica, where never expecting to see
his native land or family any more, he joined himself to a Negroe woman,
by whom he had two children: after some years, it suiting the interest
of his owner to remove him, he was separated from his second wife and
children, and brought to South Carolina, where, expecting to spend the
remainder of his days, he engaged with a third wife, by whom he had
another child; but here the same consequence of one man being subject to
the will and pleasure of another man occurring, he was separated from
this last wife and child, and brought into this country, where he
remained a slave." Can any, whose mind is not rendered quite obdurate by
the love of wealth, hear these relations, without being deeply touched
with sympathy and sorrow? And doubtless the case of many, very many of
these afflicted people, upon enquiry, would be found to be attended with
circumstances equally tragical and aggravating. And if we enquire of
those Negroes, who were brought away from their native country when
children, we shall find most of them to have been stolen away, when
abroad from their parents, on the roads, in the woods, or watching their
corn-fields. Now, you that have studied the book of conscience, and you
that are learned in the law, what will you say to such deplorable cases?
When, and how, have these oppressed people forfeited their liberty? Does
not justice loudly call for its being restored to them? Have they not
the same right to demand it, as any of us should have, if we had been
violently snatched by pirates from our native land? Is it not the duty
of every dispenser of justice, who is not forgetful of his own humanity,
to remember that these are men, and to declare them free? Where
instances of such cruelty frequently occur, and are neither enquired
into, nor redressed, by those whose duty it is _to seek judgment, and
relieve the oppressed_, Isaiah i. 17. what can be expe