Page:Benezet's A caution and warning to Great Britain and her colonies.pdf/25

[ 23 ] he has not long since published, concerning the African Trade, viz. If this trade admits of a moral or a rational justification, every crime, even the most atrocious, may be justified: Government was instituted for the good of mankind. Kings, Princes, Governors are not proprietors of those who are subjected to their authority, they have not a right to make them miserable. On the contrary, their authority is vested in them, that they may by the just exercise of it, promote the happiness of their people: Of course, they have not a right to dispose of their Liberty, and to sell them for slaves: Besides, no man has a right to acquire or to purchase them; men and their Liberty are not either saleable or purchasable, one therefore has no body but himself to blame, in case he shall find himself deprived of a man, whom he thought he had, by buying for a price, made his own; for he dealt in a trade which was illicit, and was prohibited by the most obvious dictates of humanity. For these reasons, every one of those unfortunate men, who are pretended to be slaves, has a right to be declared to be free, for he never loft his Liberty, he could not lose it; his Prince had no power to dispose of him: of course the sale was void. This right he carries about with him, and is entitled every where to get it declared. As soon, therefore, as he comes into a country, in which the judges are not forgetful of their own humanity, it is their duty to remember that he is a man, and to declare him to be free. — This is the law of nature, which is obligatory on all men, at all times, and in all places. — Would not any of us, who should be snatched by pirates from his native land, think himself cruelly abused, and at all times ' titled