Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/182

 work on the French Finances, which had just been translated into the English language from the original work, in 1784. This virtuous statesman, after having given his estimate of the population and revenue of the French West Indian colonies, proceeds thus: "The colonies of France contain, as we have seen, near five hundred thousand slaves, and it is from the number of these poor wretches that the inhabitants set a value on their plantations. What a dreadful prospect! and how profound a subject for reflection! Alas! how little are we both in our morality and our principles! We preach up humanity, and yet go every year to bind in chains twenty thousand natives of Africa I We call the Moors barbarians and ruffians, because they attack the liberty of Europeans at the risk of their own; yet these Europeans go, without danger, and as mere speculators, to purchase slaves by gratifying the avarice of their masters, and excite all those bloody scenes, which are the usual preliminaries of this traffic!" He goes on still further in the same strain. He then shows the kind of power which has supported this execrable trade. He throws out the idea of a general compact, by which all the European nations should agree to abolish it. And he indulges the pleasing hope that it may take place even in the present generation.

In the same year we find other coadjutors coming before our view, but these in a line different from that in which any other belonging to this class had yet moved. Mr. George White, a clergyman of the established church, and Mr. John Chubb, suggested to Mr. William Tucket, the mayor of Bridgewater, where they resided, and to others of that town, the propriety of petitioning parliament for the abolition of the slave-trade. This petition was agreed upon, and when drawn up, was as follows:

"The humble petition of the inhabitants of Bridgewater showeth: That your petitioners, reflecting with the deepest sensibility on the deplorable condition of that part of the human species, the African negroes, who, by the most flagitious means, are reduced to slavery and misery in the British colonies, beg leave to address this honorable house in their behalf, and to express a just abhorrence of a system of oppression, which no prospect of private gain, no consideration of public advantage, no plea of political expediency, can sufficiently justify or excuse.

"That, satisfied as your petitioners are that this inhuman system meets with the general execration of mankind, they flatter themselves the day is not far distant when it will be universally abolished. And they most ardently hope to see a British parliament, by the extinction of that sanguinary traffic, extend the blessings of liberty to millions beyond this realm, hold up to an enlightened world a glorious and merciful example, and stand foremost in the defense of the violated rights of human nature."

This petition was presented by the honorable members for the town of Bridgewater. It was ordered to lie on the table. The answer which these gentlemen gave to their constituents relative to the reception of it in the house of commons, is worthy of notice: "There did not appear," say they in their common letter, "the least disposition to pay any further attention to it. Every