Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/232

214 "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake."

From this time the poor African ceased to he hunted in our streets as a beast of prey; and our papers were no longer polluted with advertisements for the apprehension of men, whose only offence had been that of using their native right, and quitting the service of oppression; or for the sale of man as the property of his fellow-man.

 

is interesting to observe, that, in any pursuit, persons usually advance much further than they originally proposed. In the career of wickedness and cruelty, men perpetrate deeds of which they would formerly have said with indignation, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do these things?" is peculiarly applicable to the slave-trader and slave-owner. In the cause of humanity and benevolence, advances equally unanticipated are made. When Sharp had established the right of the negro to freedom on British ground, he did not rest there, though that probably was all he at first contemplated. Immediately after the decision in the case of Somerset, Mr. Sharp felt it his duty to write to Lord North, then prime minister, warning him, in the most earnest manner, to abolish immediately both the trade and the slavery of the human species in the British dominions, as utterly irreconcileable with the principles of the British constitution, as well as of the christian religion. When great works are to be effected, the hand of

