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facts therefore which I have related, are compiled from the
disinterested accounts of these gentlemen, all of whom, I have the
happiness to say, have coincided, in the minutest manner, in their
descriptions. It mud be remarked too, that they were compiled, not from
what these gentlemen heard, while they were resident in those parts, but
from what they actually _saw_. Nor has a single instance been taken
from any book whatever upon the subject, except that which is mentioned
in the 235th page; and this book was published in _France_, in the
year 1777, by _authority_.
I have now the pleasure to say, that the accounts of these disinterested
gentlemen, whom I consulted on the occasion, are confirmed by all the
books which I have ever perused upon slavery, except those which have
been written by _merchants, planters, &c_. They are confirmed by
Sir _Hans Sloane's_ Voyage to Barbadoes; _Griffith Hughes's_
History of the same island, printed 1750; an Account of North America,
by _Thomas Jeffries_, 1761; all _Benezet's_ works, &c. &c. and
particularly by Mr. _Ramsay's_ Essay on the Treatment and
Conversion of the African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies; a work
which is now firmly established; and, I may add in a very extraordinary
manner, in consequence of the controversy which this gentleman has
sustained with the _Cursory Remarker_, by which several facts which
were mentioned in the original copy of my own work, before the
controversy began, and which had never appeared in any work upon the
subject, have been brought to light. Nor has it received less support
from a letter, published only last week, from Capt. J.S. Smith, of the
Royal Navy, to the Rev. Mr. Hill; on the former of whom too high
encomiums cannot be bestowed, for standing forth in that noble and
disinterested manner, in behalf of an injured character.
I have now only to solicit the reader again, that he will make a
favourable allowance for the present work, not only from those
circumstances which I have mentioned, but from the consideration, that
only two months are allowed by the University for these their annual
compositions. Should he however be unpropitious to my request, I must
console myself with the reflection, (a reflection that will always
afford me pleasure, even amidst the censures of the great,) that by
undertaking the cause of the unfortunate _Africans_, I have
undertaken, as far as my abilities would permit, the cause of injured
innocence.
London, June 1st 1786.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 001: A Description of Guinea, with an Inquiry into the Rise
and Progress of the Slave Trade, &c.--A Caution to Great Britain and her
Colonies, in a short Representation of the calamitous State of the
enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions. Besides several smaller
pieces.]
[Footnote 002: They had censured the _African Trade_ in the year
1727, but had taken no publick notice of the _colonial_ slavery
till this time.]
[Footnote 003: The instance of the _Dutch_ colonists at the Cape,
in the first part of the Essay; the description of an African battle, in
the second; and the poetry of a negroe girl in the third, are the only
considerable additions that have been made.]
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
PART I.
The History of Slavery.
CHAP. I. Introduction.--Division of slavery into voluntary and
involuntary.--The latter the subject of the present work.--Chap. II.
The first class of involuntary slaves among the ancients, from
war.--Conjecture concerning their antiquity.--Chap. III. The second
class from piracy.--Short history of piracy.--The dance
carpoea.--Considerations from hence on the former topick.--Three
orders of involuntary slaves among the ancients.--Chap. IV. Their
personal treatment.--Exception in AEgypt.--Exception at
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