OBSERVATIONS
On the Inslaving, importing and purchasing of Negroes;
With some Advice thereon, extracted from the Epistle of the Yearly-Meeting of the People called QUAKERS held at London in the Year 1748.
When ye spread forth your Hands, I will bide mine Eyes from you, yea when ye make many. Prayers I will not bear; your Hands are full of Blood. Wash ye, make you clean, put away the Evil of your Doings from before mine Eyes Isai. 1, 15.
Is not this the Feast that I have chosen, to loose the Bands of Wickedness, to undo the heavy Burden, to let the Oppressed go free, and that ye break every Yoke, Chap. 58,7
Second Edition.
GERMANTOWN:
Printed by CHRISTOPHER SOWER. 1760
INTRODUCTION.
CUSTOMS generally approved and Opinions received by Youth from their Superiors, become like the natural Produce of a Soil, especially when they are suited to favorite Inclinations: But as the Judgments of GOD are without Partiality, by which the State of the Soul must be tried, it would be the highest Wisdom to forego Customs and popular Opinions, and try our Deeds by the infalliable Standard of Truth, even the pure Spirit of Grace which leads all those who in Şincerity obey its Dictates into a Conduct consistent with their Christian Profession.
That important Injunction of our blessed Saviour, Seek ye first the Kingdom of GOD and his Righteousness, and all Things shall be added unto you, contains a short but comprehensive View of our Duty and Happiness. If then the Business of Mankind in this Life is, to first seek another; if this cannot be done, but by attending to the Means: If a Summary of the Means be, To love the LORD our GOD with all our Heart and our Neighour as our self: So as never to do to another, that which in like Circumstances we would not have done to us; then these are Points of Moment and worthy of our most serious Consideration.
In ancient Times was the Practice of many Nations, when at war with each other, to sell the Prisoners they made in Battle, in order to defray the Expences of the War. This unchristian or rather inhuman practice, after many Ages continuance, is at length generally abolished by the Christian Powers of Europe, but still continues among some of the Nations of Asia and Africa, and to our sad Experience we find it also practised by the Natives of America. In the present war, how many of our poor Country Men are dragged to Bondage and sold for Slaves; how many mourn, a Husband, a Wife, a Child, a Parent or some near Relation taken from them; and were we to follow them a little farther, and see them exposed to sale and bough up to be made a Gain of, what Heart so hard that would not melt with Sympathy and Sorrow: And could we hear the Purchasers, for the take of Gain, pushing on the Savages to captivate our People, what inhuman Wretches should we call them, what Punishment should we think their Guilt deserved! But while our Hearts are affected for our Brethren and Relations, while we feel for our own Flesh and Blood, let us extend our Thoughts to others, and allow me, gentle Reader! to recommend to thy serious Consideration, a Practice that prevails among several Nations who call themselves Christians, and I am sorry to say it, in which we as a Nation are deeply engaged, and which is of such a Nature, as that nothing can be more inconsistent with the Doctrines and Practice of our meek Lord and Master, nor stained with a deeper Dye of Injustice, Cruelty and Oppression, I mean the Slave Trade, the purchasing and bringing the poor Negroes from their Native Land, and subjecting them to a State of perpetual Bondage, and that often the most cruel and oppressive. And this carried on chiefly at the instigation of those to whom the Promulgation of the merciful, pure, and holy Gospel of Christ Jesus was committed.