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entire division of its evils to the present hour . One branch , indeed , the trade in Slaves , has been abolished . We have ceased , siuce the year 1807 , to seize and tear oar fellow-creatures from the coasts Of Africa ; but the slavery itself—the source of that felonious traffic—remains ; the unhappy men , whom we now detain iu bond age are themselves the victims , as their parents were before them , of
that first direful and cruel injustice—and yet we still forbear to deliver them . Our princes , our governors , our legislators , our magistrates , our clergy , our commonalty , are ' verily guilty' in different degrees , ' concerning their brethren . * — It is their neglect , their silence , their cowardice , their selfishness , which has tolerated for twenty-three long years this large half of the fatal svstem .
" Tlie first burst , indeed , of honest indignation , when the horrors of the Colonial Slate-trade and Slavery were displayed in their origin , progress , aud consummation , before the eyes of the nation forty years since , was deep and sincere ; one feeling penetrated the Houses of Parliament aud the general mass of the community . All but those
immediately engaged in the evil itself , rose up as one man to put down the mighty oppression ; but deiay was interposed ; hardy denials of the facts were adveutured ; expediency was suggested against principle aud duty ; ihe warmth of men ' s minds cooled . We forbore , we hesitated , we closed our eyes aud ears to the truth . Calculations of base interest , prepossessions iu powerful quarters , . sloth , fear of giving offence , dislike of
trouble and inconvenience interposed , and years were consumed in obtaining even one branch of the act of reparation . In order to this , it was found uecessary , in \ 7 i ) l and 1792 , to separate the questions of the Slave-trade and Slaveiy . Eveu after this concession , the traffic was defended , pleaded for , maintained with so much pertinacity , that the partial victory was not gained till after twenty wearisome years of conflict .
" Our rcinissuess then returned . We forbore once again to deliver * them that were drawn unto death , ' and whom we had confessed to have been obtained by a crime justly branded as piracy . Had we followed out at once the
dictates of those feelings which procured for us the abolition of the traffic ; had we pursued the triumph with due perseverauce into its consequences iu the West India Islands , Colonial Slavery would long ago have ceased , our bondmen would have been free aud happy
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labourers , and our islands would bare become , what , by their natural beauties they are calculated for , the garden of the empire . But the case was remote , it was not Englishmen who were goffering . Had a single British family been discovered in an adjoining isle , kidnapped from oar shores , and held in unjust and cruel bondage , driven by the whip to excessive toil , degraded and
depressed by neglect and scorn , deprived of the rest of the Sabbath , the rights of marriage , and the privilege of religion ;—had Africa committed one such act of atrocity upon England , the whole nation would have joined in the cry of detestation . Not only the first seizure , bnt the continued detention would have been reprobated with horror ; the captives , with their households , would have been
instantly set free , and the severest punishment would have been inflicted on the odious Slave-owners . But , because it is Englishmen who have inflicted ihe crime upon Africans ; because the scene is distant ; because the cries of misery do not actually ring in our ears ; because the gains of the iniquity arc supposed to be great ; because the oppressors * av
they are now ameliorating the condition of their victims ; because party and political contentions have mingled with the question ; therefore we hesitate , we are silent , we delay . Other topics rouse the attention of Parliament—this does not ; other topics animate the hearts of statesmen , nobles , magistrates—this wearies them : other national sins fill the
mouths of the ministers of religion—this dies upou their lips . Eveu an incorporated Society for Propagating the Gospel has possessed , with but little actual improvement , a Slave estate for more than a century . ^\ 11 is death-like silence . The advocate for the poor blacks , in or out of
Parliament , is heard with suspicion ; few will go so far as to deny the facts of the case , but all . shrink from the duty of repairing them ; all wish to defer the act ot justice ; all content themselves with rapid generalities and ineffective resolutions . The miserable traveller lies
before us , his unjust and cruel sufferings plead for pity , his wounds are unas suaged , he is half dead ; we come tip to the place where he is ; but instead of having coinpassiou on him as the good Samaritan , and binding up his wouuds , pouring in oil and wine , and taking care of him , we pass by , with the Priest aud Levtte , ou the other side . 44
2 nd . And what can be the excuses b § which this negiitt is concealed and pallia ted * This is the next tjucstiou . Our
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Critical Notices . — Theological . 345
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 345, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/57/
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