Page:Thorpe (1819) A commentary on the treaties.pdf/57

53 ed by his colour ; and that if white and black men should be seized committing the same depredations, the black shall suffer death, and the white receive profuse compensation for being detained for trial. I have already shewn in my public letter to Mr. Wilberforce, (printed Feb. 1815) that the slave trader violates the law of God, of nature, and nations, and that it is the violation of those laws that constitutes the crime of piracy; why then should not the Sovereigns of the civilized world declare slave trading piracy? While the inﬁdel corsair shall be punished by law, should the Christian pirate be licensed by treaty? ! !

I have no‘ doubt the Sovereigns of the Holy Alliance are willing to constitute slave-traders pirates; they only require Great Britain, the benevolent advocate of abolition, to lead the way; Austria, Russia, and Prussia, have shewn themselves adverse to slavery, and have emancipated hundreds of thousands in their own dominions; Sweden, Denmark, Holland, France, Spain, Sardinia, with North and South America having abolished the slave trade themselves, it must be their wish, as well as their interest, that other nations should do the same; Portugal alone resists the claims in favour of Africa, though she acknowledges the justice and humanity of them, and the impolicy of carrying the Africans to Brazil: if she will then be so obstinately and confessedly unjust.