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particularly however the duty of the British government to do this, if she is willing to avert the further indignation of Heaven from her colonies where slavery is practised, and its further indignation from herself, as the slaves in the British West-India islands are perhaps treated with more inhumanity than in any other part of the world. I am aware of the objections that would be made to a discontinuance of the slave-trade by foolish or interested men. It would be said that negroes are absolutely necessary for carrying on the work of a West-India plantation. I am of a contrary opinion. But if it were to be allowed it would avail but little with wise and good men. Is the human form to be degraded to the brutal by this odious practise of slavery, I would ask, (for I want to wake the conscience which now slumbers in the breasts of these tyrants; I want to rouse it, and to make it come forth, "Like a giant refreshed with wine") is Humanity, and Reason, and Christianity, and God, to be insulted, because a West-India plantation can be worked somewhat better with negroes than without them? - It is said by some, that the masters of slaves have a property in them, that they are the goods of the masters which they have obtained by inheritance or by purchase, and that to deprive a man of his property is unjust. In answer to which I will observe, that no man can have a property in stolen goods, and this it is immaterial whether a man, or his ancestors, or the person of whom they were bought, stole the goods. To those who should ask if the Africans were made slaves by theft, I would answer, Yes, and would appeal to the evidence of impartial history for the truth of my assertion. I would say more, I would say that they were made slaves by theft, by treachery, by oppression, by murder, by every villainy that can debase and corrupt the heart. - I would say also that the common maxim that "The receiver is as bad as the thief," extends to this as well [[end page]]
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well as every other species of theft. - "Man-stealing (says the excellent author of the dialogues which I have before quoted) is not only unlawful, - I think it the most atrocious detestate crime. To steal a horse, or to rob a man on the road of his money, is reckoned, among us, a capital crime deserving death, and is by law punishable with death. What then does he deserve, what punishment can be great enough for him, who steals a man, a crime in comparison with which horse-stealing or robbing on the high-way is but trifling fault, quite excuseable and venial. Man-stealers were by the law of Moses punished with death. "He that stealeth a man, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Exod. xxi. 16. And in the New Testament, 1 Tim. i. 10. "Man-stealers are reckoned amongst the very worst of Men." And again this author says, "Man-stealing is a kind, and indeed the worst kind of sacrilege, which consideration further shews the impiety of it. Man is sacred, and is by nature devoted to the service of God, to whose authority alone he is obliged to yield an absolute unlimited obedience; for one man therefore to assault another, and by mere force to make captive of him, not for any crime that he has been guilty of, but to make a penny of him, considering him as part of his possessions or goods, with which he can do what he pleases, is robbing of God, which is sacrilege." 
The members of the British legislature, and those who are in authority among other nations of the world who carry on the slave-trade, if they do not endeavour by every reasonable exertion to abrogate that trade, are guilty indirectly of murder. They suffer murder to be committed by their neglect. They will answer therefore for such neglect at that dread tribunal, where there will be an, "Inquisition for blood." It must give pleasure however to every lover of human nature to reflect, that the English nation
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