have not yet took place with them; they have scarce an idea of them; so that in effect, all the advantage we can claim, is to have more elevated notions of things, and our natural faculties more unfolded and more cultivated than theirs.—­Do not let us flatter our corruptions, nor voluntarily blind ourselves; all nations are equally free; one nation has no right to infringe upon the freedom of any other; let us do towards these people as we would have them to have done towards us, if they had landed upon our shore, with the same superiority of strength.  And indeed, why should not things be equal on both sides?  How long has the right of the strongest been allowed to be the balance of justice?  What part of the gospel gives a sanction to such a doctrine?  In what part of the whole earth did the apostles and the first promulgators of the gospel ever claim a right over the lives, the freedom, or the substance of the Gentiles?  What a strange method this is of propagating the gospel, that holy law of grace, which, from being, slaves to Satan, initiates us into the freedom of the children of God!—­Will it be possible for us to inspire them with a love to its dictates, while they are so exasperated at being dispossessed of that invaluable blessing, Liberty? The apostles submitted to chains themselves, but loaded no man with them.  Christ came to free, not to enslave us.—­Submission to the faith he left us, ought to be a voluntary act, and should be propagated by persuasion, gentleness, and reason.”

“At my first arrival in Hispaniola, (added the bishop) it contained a million of inhabitants; and now (viz. in the space of about twenty years) there remains scarce the hundredth part of them; thousands have perished thro’ want, fatigue, merciless punishment, cruelty, and barbarity.  If the blood of one man unjustly shed, calls loudly for vengeance; how strong must be the cry of that of so many unhappy creatures which is shedding daily?”—­The good bishop concluded his speech, with imploring the King’s clemency for subjects so unjustly oppressed; and bravely declared, that heaven would one day call him to an account, for the numberless acts of cruelty which he might have prevented.  The King applauded the bishop’s zeal; promised to second it; but so many of the great ones had an interest in continuing the oppression, that nothing was done; so that all the Indians in Hispaniola, except a few who had hid themselves in the most inaccessible mountains, were destroyed.

CHAP.  V.

First account of the English trading to Guinea.  Thomas Windham and several others go to that coast.  Some of the Negroes carried off by the English.  Queen Elizabeth’s charge to Captain Hawkins respecting the natives.  Nevertheless he goes on the coast and carries off some of the Negroes.  Patents are granted.  The King of France objects to the Negroes being kept in slavery.  As do the college of Cardinals at Rome.  The natives, an inoffensive people; corrupted by the Europeans.  The sentiments of the natives concerning the slave-trade, from William Smith:  Confirmed by Andrew Brue and James Barbot.