The law, then, by which Moses commanded the Children of Israel to regulate their conduct with respect to the usage of the stranger, I showed to be a law of universal and eternal obligation, and for this, among other reasons, that it was neither more nor less than the Christian law, which appeared afterwards, that we should not do that to others, which we should be unwilling to have done unto ourselves.

Having gone into these statements at some length, I made an application of them in the following words:—­

“This being the case, and this law of Moses being afterwards established into a fundamental precept of Christianity, I must apply it to facts of the present day, and I am sorry that I must apply it to—­ourselves.

“And first, Are there no strangers, whom we oppress?  I fear the wretched African will say, that he drinks the cup of sorrow, and that he drinks it at our hands.  Torn from his native soil, and from his family and friends, he is immediately forced into a situation, of all others the most degrading, where he and his progeny are considered as cattle, as possessions, and as the possessions of a man to whom he never gave offence.

“It is a melancholy fact, but it can be abundantly proved, that great numbers of the unfortunate strangers, who are carried from Africa to our colonies, are fraudulently and forcibly taken from their native soil.  To descant but upon a single instance of the kind must be productive of pain to the ear of sensibility and freedom.  Consider the sensations of the person, who is thus carried off by the ruffians, who have been lurking to intercept him.  Separated from every thing which he esteems in life, without the possibility even of bidding his friends adieu, behold him overwhelmed in tears—­wringing his hands in despair—­looking backwards upon the spot where all his hopes and wishes lay,—­while his family at home are waiting for him with anxiety and suspense—­are waiting, perhaps, for sustenance—­are agitated between hope and fear—­till length of absence confirms the latter, and they are immediately plunged into inconceivable misery and distress.

“If this instance, then, is sufficiently melancholy of itself, and is at all an act of oppression, how complicated will our guilt appear, who are the means of snatching away thousands annually in the same manner, and who force them and their families into the same unhappy situation, without either remorse or shame!”

Having proceeded to show, in a more particular manner than I can detail here, how, by means of the Slave-trade, we oppressed the stranger, I made an inquiry into the other branch of the subject, or how far we had a knowledge of his heart.

To elucidate this point, I mentioned several specific instances, out of those which I had collected in my journey, and which I could depend upon as authentic, of honour—­gratitude—­fidelity—­filial, fraternal, and conjugal affection—­and of the finest sensibility, on the part of those, who had been brought into our colonies from Africa, in the character of slaves, and then I proceeded for a while in the following words:—­