Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/29

Rh appeared as champion for the rights of mankind, against avarice, extortion and inhumanity—that you had, with an heroic courage, dared to press home on an infidel, luxurious world, the dreadful threats of the Lord. The ruins of Babylon, Memphis and Tyre, are strong mementos to a Lisbon, a London, and a Paris, of the recompense paid to those, who fat their luxuries, on the labor of wretched slaves. "The Portuguese, were the first of the western Christians, who allowed slavery; their adventurers stole men from Guinea and sold them as slaves. On Lisbon, the judgment has fallen. An unnatural war between us and America, seems to denote the second—you fairly open up the third, &c. &c.."

In a subsequent letter, dated Cranham Hall, 13th October, 1776, General Oglethorpe supplies the following deeply interesting historical facts: "My friends and I settled the colony of Georgia, and by Charter were established Trustees, to make laws, &c. We determined not to suffer slavery there. But the slave merchants and their adherents, occasioned us not only much trouble, but at last got the then government to favor them. We would not suffer slavery (which is against the Gospel as well as the fundamental law of England) to be authorized under our authority; we refused as Trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime. The Government finding the Trustees resolved firmly not to concur with what they believed unjust, took away the charter by which no law could be passed without our consent. * * *

"This cruel custom of a private man's being supported in exercising more power over the man whom he affirms to have bought as his slave, than the magistrate has over the master, is a solecism in politics. This, I think was taken from the Romans. The horrid cruelty, which that proud nation showed in all they did, gave such power to the masters of slaves, that they confused even the state. Decius Brutus, by the gladiators, his slaves, defended the