Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/30

26 conspirators that killed the Dictator Cæsar. The cruelty of the slave masters occasioned the slaves to join Spartacus, who almost overturned Rome, &c. "I find in Sir Walter Raleigh's history of the Saracens, that their success, and the destruction of the Grecian and Persian empires, were chiefly owing to the Greeks and Persians having such vast numbers of slaves, by whom all labor and husbandry were carried on. And on the Saracens' giving freedom to all who professed their law, the multitude, in every conquered province, joined them. * *

"The christian Emperors would have qualified the laws of slavery—but the Senate of Rome, in whom the old leaven of idolatry still prevailed, stopped such good designs. St. Austin, in his "De Civitate Dei," mentions that idolatry was sunk into the marrow of the Romans—that the destruction of Rome by the Goths seemed necessary to root out idolatry. The Goths and all the northern nations, when converted to Christianity, abolished slavery. The husbandry was performed by men under the protection of the laws. Though some tenures of villienage were too severe, yet the villien had the protection of law; and their lords could not exact more than was by the laws regulated," (Bracton,) &c. About this time, General Oglethorpe published, "The Sailor's Advocate," against the impressment of seamen, and Sharp supplied a pungent introduction to it. Thus they continued to strengthen one another in their sacred ardor for holy, impartial, social liberty. Amongst Sharp's sentiments on this subject, the following particularly strike me. "In short, the doctrine of necessity, may be admitted to excuse some things of an indifferent nature, not evil in themselves, though prohibited by law; but never to justify iniquity and oppression, respect of persons, or any thing that