Page:Benezet's A caution and warning to Great Britain and her colonies.pdf/5

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A CAUTION AND WARNING &c.

a time when the general rights and liberties of mankind, and the preservation of those valuable privileges transmitted to us from our ancestors, are become so much the subjects of universal consideration; can it be an inquiry indifferent to any, how many of those who distinguish themselves as the Advocates of Liberty, remain insensible and inattentive to the treatment of thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow-men, who, from motives of avarice, and the inexorable degree of tyrant custom, are at this very time kept in the most deplorable state of slavery, in many parts of the British Dominions.

The intent of publishing the following sheets, is more fully to make known the aggravated iniquity attending the practice of the Slave-Trade; whereby many thousands of our fellow-creatures, as free as ourselves by nature, and equally with us the subjects of Christ's redeeming grace, are yearly brought into inextricable and barbarous bondage; and many, very many, to miserable and untimely ends.

The truth of this lamentable complaint is so obvious to persons of candour, under whose notice it hath fallen, that several have lately published their sentiments thereon; as a matter which calls for the most serious consideration of all who are concerned for the civil or religious welfare of their country. How an evil of so deep a dye, hath so long, not only passed uninterrupted by Those in Power, but hath even had Rh