Page:Notices of Negro slavery as connected with Pennsylvania.djvu/13

Rh After the death of this prelate, the emperor, Charles V., in 1517, encouraged the slave trade, and granted letters patent for carrying it on; but he lived to see his error and most nobly renounced it, for he ordered and had executed a complete manumission of all African slaves in his American dominions. About this time Pope Leo X. gave to the world this noble declaration: "That not only the Christian religion, but nature herself cried out against a state of slavery." In the year 1562, in the reign of Elizabeth, the English first stained their hands with the negro traffic: Captain, afterwards Sir J. Hawkins, made a descent on the African coast, and carried away a number