Page:Newton's Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade.pdf/13

8 that such an addition would spoil the whole. God forbid, that any supposed profit or advantage, which we can derive from the groans and agonies, and blood of the poor Africans, should draw down his heavy curse, upon all that we might, otherwise, honourably and comfortably possess.

For the sake of Method, I could wish to consider the African Trade, — First, with regard to the effects it has upon our own people; and Secondly, as it concerns the Blacks, or, as they are more contemptuously styled, the Negroe Slaves, whom we purchase upon the Coast. But these two topics are so interwoven together, that it will not be easy to keep them exactly separate.

I. The first point I shall mention is surely of political importance, if the lives of our fellow-subjects be so; and if a rapid loss of Seamen deserves the attention of a maritime people. This loss, in the African Trade, is truly alarming. I admit, that many of them are cut off in their first voyage, and, consequently, before they can properly rank as Seamen; though they would have been Seamen, if they had lived. But the neighbourhood of our sea-ports is continually drained, of men and boys, to supply the places of those who die