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                             EXAMINATION

                                  OF

                        The Rev. Mr. HARRIS’s

                        SCRIPTURAL RESEARCHES

                                  ON

                  The Licitness of the Slave-Trade.


                      By the Rev. JAMES RAMSAY.

                               LONDON:

               Printed by JAMES PHILLIPS, George-Yard,
                           Lombard-Street.

                           M.DCC.LXXXVIII.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The following Examination was drawn up in the country, from a casual
perusal of Mr. Harris’s Scriptural Researches, with a view of
putting them into the hands of any person, who might be employed in
answering that very extraordinary work. But on coming up to town,
and understanding that Mr. Harris’s reasoning had produced effects
on certain people, who had not studied the scriptures, or attended
to that spirit of freedom, which runs throughout the Old and New
Testament, and who hitherto had suffered themselves to be reluctantly
dragged along by the present prevailing enthusiasm in favour of
freedom, but now eagerly seized on a pretence for abandoning the
cause, it has been judged proper to give it at once to the publick.
Mr. Harris affects to proceed mathematically in the treatment of
his subject, and therefore establishes certain data. I had thought
it sufficient to contradict their particular application, in my
examination of the subject; but others thinking it necessary to take
more direct notice of them, I have subjoined the following short
observations.

Dat. 1, 2. “The scriptures of the Old and New Testament are of equal
authority, and contain the unerring decisions of the word of God.”

Observation. Certainly: but it will not be disputed, that there are
many things, not indeed deserving the name of decisions, but that
pass without censure, and are seemingly allowed there, which we know
to be forbidden to us, and which will not apply to the improved state
of mankind. Laws must be adapted, not only to the state of society,
but to the present state of the improvement of the human mind, which
we know has been gradually advancing from the earliest ages.

Dat. 3, 4. “It is criminal to refuse assent to what the scriptures
decide to be intrinsically good or bad.”

Obser. Suppose this. Yet may we not inquire if a thing or practice
be really so declared, and if it concerns our salvation, to form
a decided opinion on it? Are we not liable to mistake practices,
arising out of circumstances connected with the first formation of
society, and therefore not positively censured, for such decisions
of intrinsical goodness? Thus the eating of swines flesh was allowed
before the promulgation of the law of Moses; that law strictly forbad
it; the Christian law allows it again as at the beginning: or, the
Jews were alone restrained from the use of it; while they continued
under a particular œconomy, and their transgression of this law was
only a crime, because it was enjoined them; not because it was in
itself a thing unlawful, as murder, adultery, and the like.

Dat. 5, 6. “Every scriptural decision, however incomprehensible, must
be assented to as a declaration of the word of God.” We must consider
the circumstances under which that decision is made; how far it is
agreeable to our benevolent religion, and how far it is applicable
to our conduct, before we imitate it. The drunken incest of Lot is
not censured. It was the means of producing two mighty nations; from
which, according to the author’s manner of reasoning, he ought to
conclude it was approved of; yet I suppose he will not recommend the
imitation to any person in these days.

Dat. 7. “The slave-trade must be believed to be intrinsically just
and lawful, if the scriptures give a sanction to it.” Suppose the
slave-trade to have this sanction (which yet is not true) unless the
author can shew how it can be carried on without infringing on our
Saviour’s golden rule, of doing as we would be done by; unless he
can instruct us how we can go to the coast of Africa, and by every
fraudulent, violent, oppressive method, rob, murder, and enslave
innocent people without a crime; then are we to keep our practice, if
not our opinion, suspended.

Dat. 8. “No abuse of a lawful pursuit, can make that pursuit
criminal.” It is lawful for a man to provide for his family; but not
to rob and murder on the highway under such a pretence. Whenever a
man’s industry is connected with such practices, the actual exertion
of it is a crime in him, though to provide for his family in an
honest way would be laudable. That there is an unlawful slavery
noticed in the scriptures, is clear, from the punishment that Pharaoh
brought on himself and Ægypt, for enslaving the Jews. The author
should distinguish, and mark the difference between the slavery that
(page 41) is almost commanded, and that which brings down divine
judgments on the oppressor, and shew that his patrons of Leverpool
practise only the first.

Dat. 9. “No private or publick advantage will ever justify the
slave-trade, till it be proved essentially just and lawful in
its nature.” Here we are sincerely agreed; and according to the
distinction proposed for datum 8, he has only to set heartily to
work, and prove the Leverpool slave-trade to be that particular sort
of slave-trade, “which God hath commanded as being essentially just
and lawful in its nature.”

Dat. 10. “No argument drawn from abuse, can prove the intrinsic
deformity of the slave-trade, unless it be proved essentially
unjust.” These are words without meaning. We are not combating an
ideal slavery; but slavery accompanied with robbery, oppression,
misery, murder. Wherever we find slavery so attended, it becomes a
horrid crime, be it intrinsically never so just.

Dat. 11. “If abuses committed in the prosecution of a lawful pursuit
can be prevented, then the advantages arising from it, ought to
have a powerful influence against the abolition.” But if these
abuses cannot possibly be prevented (for are we to oppress and
murder according to law?) then the greatest advantages attending any
practice must be abandoned, till a method shall be discovered, of
separating them from iniquity and blood-shed.

Dat. 12. “If the slave-trade is to be abolished, because of the
abuses committed in it, then every other branch of trade, in which
abuses are committed, ought to share the same fate.” Most certainly
in turn, in proportion to the atrociousness of each. Let us once
get this staring monster subdued, and we will be obliged to the
author for pointing out any other iniquitous traffick that deserves
to follow immediately in the train of the Leverpool slave-trade.
The fallaciousness of this author’s reasoning, is exceedingly well
exposed, in the Critical Review of April, 1788, to which I refer the
reader.

From this view of the author’s data, it will appear, that he has
totally confounded times and circumstances. The law of Moses was
enacted in aid of natural religion, till the perfect religion of
Christ should be given to the world. The doctrines of this last,
enjoin us to consider and treat all men as our brethren; and its
effect was gradually to take away all burthensome ceremonies, all
oppressive distinctions. Why are we then sent back to less perfect
institutions for the rule of our practice? We are to go on to
perfection, refine sentiment, and extend benevolence. What has raised
Europe above the rest of the world, but the abolition of domestick
slavery? What degrees of opulence and prosperity might it acquire,
if the abominable, contracted, branch of trade in the bodies of
our fellow creatures of Africa, were changed to a fair, equitable
intercourse of productions and manufactures!

                                                                 J. R.




EXAMINATION, &c.


This gentleman professes to treat the subject seriously, and to
submit his opinion to the decisions of revealed religion. No man has
a right to dispute his sincerity, as far as his own way of thinking
is concerned; but few serious people will peruse his extraordinary
positions, without having their reverence for their Creator shocked,
and their benevolence to their brother affected. The Scriptures,
from which he draws his conclusions, we believe to teach, that all
men are equally dear to their Creator, and that we owe love and good
offices to each other. But if his deductions be fairly made, we must
no longer entertain this opinion; for one part of mankind is to
be kidnapped, evil intreated, oppressed, murdered, to indulge the
avarice of another; and, page 76, Corol. 3d. “He doth not believe the
Scriptures, who is not persuaded that this doctrine is taught there.”

But the author stumbles at the very threshold. Our Saviour (John v.
39.) bids the Jews to search the scriptures; “for in them ye think
ye have eternal life; for they are they which testify of me,” the
Saviour come to free men from the bondage of sin, into the glorious
privilege of the sons of God. But it seems something else is meant.
We are to search the scriptures (see title page) for a commission
to Leverpool captains for fitting out ships, and loading them with
powder, shot, and cutlasses, to set the Africans on to assault,
kidnap, and enslave each other; to be transferred over to them; to
be murdered by bad air, thirst, and famine, in the passage to the
West-Indies; where the poor remains are to be set to hard labour,
without food, without cloathing, without rest, sufficient to support
nature.

It is true (preface, page 5.) he, with all the other advocates for
slavery, declares himself “an enemy to injustice and oppression.”
But the design of his book is to shew, that the ill-treatment of
slaves is not an object of divine animadversion; for (p. 16.) Sarah
was permitted without censure, “to use cruel oppressive treatment
to Hagar;” and (p. 26.) Joseph is approved of by God for the
cruel manner in which he enslaved and exchanged the abodes of the
Egyptians. Which of these is to be believed; his general assertion,
or his particular application? Or may we conclude, that he reserves
to himself the feelings of humanity, and sells tyranny and oppression
to his friends of Leverpool.

In the scriptures servants are frequently mentioned; but, in this
dissertation, they are transformed into “slave trade.” The places,
where traffick in slaves is related, are Joseph’s brethren (Gen.
xxxvii.) selling him to the Ishmaelites, who sell him to Potiphar;
the Tyrians (Ezek. xxvii. 13.) who had a market for the persons of
men; and Babylon, the mother of abominations, (Rev. xviii. 13.)
who exposed to sale, slaves and souls of men. I hope none of these
instances are proposed to the imitation of the “ancient and loyal
town of Leverpool;” for a black mark is set on them to prevent them
from being followed.

Now there is some difference between dealing in slaves as a branch of
trade, and buying the service of a domestic; even as it is not every
man who eats meat, that is or could act the part of a butcher. In the
case of the Jews there was something particular. They were obliged to
admit their slaves to all the national privileges, to circumcision,
the passover, and other solemn feasts, and to instruct them in the
true religion (Gen. xvii. 13. Exod. xii. 44. Deut. xvi. 11. and xxxi.
12. Josh. viii. 35.) In buying them from the Heathen around them,
they recovered them from idolatry; they gave them a weekly sabbath.
In their treatment they were commanded to remember, that they
themselves had been slaves in Egypt. When they are threatened for
their sins, the ill treatment of their slaves makes a capital part
of the charge against them. But modern masters think that nothing of
this sort concerns them.

The Jews were intended to communicate to the world the knowledge of
the true religion. He who brings good out of evil made use of the
slavery, in practice, to extend this knowledge to persons, whom it
could not at that time have otherwise reached. But nothing in the
bible countenances a trade in slaves. Even the transferring them in
ordinary cases is checked as in that of wives and concubines (Exod.
xxi. 11.) Their ill treatment was guarded against, by that law which
gave them freedom if their master had struck out a single tooth.

Indeed, among the Jews, the number of slaves must have been small.
They were numerous in a narrow territory, and were in general
husband-men, and used ploughs and other instruments of agriculture,
and wrought in the field with their servants. Ziba, who appears to
have been steward to the house of Saul, had only twenty servants
to assist him and his sons in cultivating the lands belonging to
the family. The Jews on their return from captivity had only one
servant to six persons, or one in each family. The remnant of the
Gibeonites, who served the temple, was then 392. It is not therefore
fair to consider every accidental possession of a servant, either
as an instance, or as a vindication of the Leverpool “slave trade;”
of which no ancient nation could ever form an idea. We may rather
conclude, that though the Jews were permitted to buy slaves from the
Heathen, they did not traffick in them; and forcibly to enslave their
brethren was death. (See Exod. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv. 7.)

Of Mr. Harris’s data as general propositions, I shall say little
more; the application alone is what the present subject is concerned
in. I shall only suggest an additional datum, as necessary to
complete his principles of reasoning.

Dat. 13. If the slave trade, though “intrinsically licit,” cannot
now be carried on, without breaking through every human and divine
law, without cheating, violence, oppression, murder, then must it be
laid aside, till we shall have discovered a way of carrying it on,
agreeably to the doctrines of the gospel, by which we are enjoined to
consider all men as our brethren, and to deal by them as we wish them
to deal by us.

Page 16. Speaking of Abraham’s possessing of servants, he calls it,
“a positive approbation, a sanction of divine authority in favour
of the slave-trade.” What a change is put on the Reader! Abraham
possessed servants; therefore the Leverpool slave-trade has a
divine sanction. For if this be not meant, nothing is meant. His
book is published to vindicate this trade; it is dedicated to the
corporation, who must so understand it. Now let a man only read Mr.
Newton or Mr. Falconbridge’s, or any other eye-witness’s account of
this trade, and what horrid impiety must of necessity be understood!
Is there “a divine sanction” for all the iniquity accompanying this
very diabolical business, the kidnapping, chaining, murdering,
suffocating of millions of unhappy fellow creatures? Are such
things not barely permitted, but (p. 42.) approved, encouraged, and
seemingly enjoined?

Abraham was a rich, powerful, prince. As he travelled through various
countries, numbers must have been desirous of attaching themselves
to his fortune, and have offered themselves for his attendants. His
humanity might have induced him to purchase children from unnatural
parents, or captives from robbers. But all in his family were in a
situation very different from that of West Indian slaves. We learn,
that on the supposition of his dying childless, he intended one of
them for his heir; that he intrusted a servant to chuse a wife for
his son Isaac; that he put arms in his servants hands, and led them
out to battle. There is nothing of West Indian slavery in all this.

But a particular stress is laid on the story of Hagar, and Sarah’s
ill treatment of her. Page 19. “She obtained no favourable sentence
from the Divine Tribunal for leaving her mistress, nor was Sarah
censured for her severity.” Sarah was not present when the angel
appeared unto Hagar, therefore she is neither praised nor condemned.
But that Hagar believed she had a favourable sentence, and that
her conduct was not condemned, when assured that the Lord had seen
her affliction, which is the scripture phrase for deliverance (Gen.
xxix. 32. and xxxi. 42. Exod. iii. 7.), and that she should have
a son, and that her seed should be multiplied, appears from her
acknowledgment of the vision, and returning to her mistress. Nor can
we imagine in what more flattering manner her affliction could have
been recompensed, or how she could have been afflicted so as to have
deserved a recompence, and her mistress not to have been in fault. It
was necessary for her to return to her mistress, that her son might
partake of the sign of the covenant, and be instructed in the true
religion.

Hagar’s case (p. 19.) is compared with an African female slave
in the West Indies. Nothing can be more opposite. Josephus says,
Pharaoh made Abraham a present of money; and the scriptures say,
that he intreated Abraham well for Sarah’s sake, adding immediately,
he had cattle, and men servants, and maid servants, as if Pharaoh
had presented them; among whom Hagar might have been one; or, as it
appears she was a worshipper of the true God, she might voluntarily
have entered into Sarah’s service. Certainly she had never been
cooped up in a Guinea trader, nor set to plant the sugar-cane; nor
was she ordered to return and submit herself for her mistress’s
profit, but for her own and her son’s sake; and when that purpose was
answered she was dismissed.

There is therefore no foundation for the author’s deduction, p. 20.
that “a divine voice declares her to be her master’s indisputable
property, and the original bargain to be just and lawful in its
nature; and that the (Leverpool) slave-trade, even attended with
circumstances not conformable to the feelings of humanity, is
essentially confident with the rights of justice, and has the
positive sanction of God for its support, however displeasing these
circumstances may be to his fatherly providence.” Let any man make
sense of this who can. I understand only the extreme boldness of the
expression. Here is a right to enslave and an approbation, and also
a censure of the exercise of this right. Here our natural notions of
benevolence are set in opposition to revelation, p. 42. Revelation
commands us to enslave our brethren, even against the suggestions
of the feelings of humanity. Surely the writer should shew the high
purposes answered by slavery, to gain which it is an act of piety to
violate our benevolent feelings.

We come now to the story of Joseph, which, p. 23, “ascertains
the inherent lawfulness of the” (Leverpool) “slave-trade.” The
first thing that strikes us in his account is, his illustrating
his doctrine by Joseph’s political arrangements of the kingdom of
Egypt, rather than by Joseph’s own story; which, except in the
horrid circumstances of the middle passage, agrees entirely with the
Leverpool slave-trade. Joseph is found at a distance from protection.
His enemies kidnap him and sell him to slave-brokers, who carry him
into Egypt, and dispose of him as an article of commerce to Potiphar.
His kidnappers saw, and like Guinea captains disregarded, the anguish
of his soul. It is true, afterwards, when they believed themselves
in danger of being enslaved in turn, they upbraid each other with
their unfeeling cruelty, and charge their distress to its account.
But this was only because Scriptural Researches had not then been
published: for they, p. 20, would have proved, that “though the
action was not altogether conformable to the feelings of humanity,
and was even displeasing to his Fatherly Providence; and though
doubtless God would see, and of consequence recompense, Joseph for
his affliction as he had Hagar; yet this stroke in the slave-trade is
essentially consistent with the unalienable rights of justice; has
the positive sanction of God in its support, nay, his approbation, p.
16, and p. 42, even his command.”

But let us examine Joseph’s management of the Egyptians, not as this
author, but as the scriptures represent it. In the years of plenty
Joseph stored the extraordinary produce of each district in the
neighbouring cities. One tenth part belonged of right to the king;
the rest he purchased at a low price with the king’s treasures. In
the years of famine he sold the corn out to the inhabitants of the
districts nearest to his respective store-houses at an advanced
price, and accumulated the money, cattle, and moveables of the whole
kingdom, and at last made a bargain for their lands and persons. It
is not to be supposed that any property, except money, was taken
out of the original possessors hands; for this would have answered
no purpose, but to distress the people and embarrass government.
Indeed, where could the whole cattle and moveables of the kingdom
have been stored? When the seven years of famine were ended, Pharaoh
was the sole proprietor. Joseph then gives the inhabitants a charter,
restores them their lands and cattle, on condition of paying to
Pharaoh a second tenth of the produce of the land, which made their
contributions to the revenue a fifth part of their crops. It appears
no other badge or burden of slavery was imposed, except this rent,
which was a tenth part more than they had formerly paid.

The common rent of the bare land in England is estimated at one-third
of the produce, and the farmer must supply himself with stock, except
perhaps buildings, and also contribute largely in a variety of ways
to the publick revenues: but by Joseph’s regulation the Egyptian
farmer paid only a fifth part for the use of his stock and land, and
for the support of government. After having transferred themselves
and property to Pharaoh, they could not have been freed on easier
terms: and as we often see, that he who hires a farm, grows rich on a
possession on which the owner had been ruined, probably the Egyptians
became as happy under their new tenure as they had been under their
old. In the most unfavourable light, it may be compared with the
change that took place at the conquest, when free tenures became
feudal, charged with certain services.

Our translation, Gen. xlvii. 20, 21. says, “So the land became
Pharaoh’s; and as for the people, he removed them to cities from
one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof.”
In the Septuagint it is, “and the land became Pharaoh’s, and he
subjected the people to be servants to him from one end of Egypt to
the other.” It is to the same purport in the Samaritan copy. This
reads better, and is more probable, than that Joseph should have
made the whole nation, as Mr. Harris affirms, change settlements in
such a manner as if the people of Kent were sent to the Orkneys, and
those of the Orkneys were brought to Kent. This would be such a
trifling with peoples lives and feelings, such a waste of property,
such a perversion of all experience, and particular knowledge of the
agriculture proper in each district, as is only applicable to the
Leverpool slave-trade; but cannot, on such slight grounds as this
general expression is, be imagined in a man of Joseph’s character,
with a pretended view to prevent rebellion. Or the expression in
our translation may bear, that the people were distributed so as to
be near the respective store-houses, on which their maintenance was
assigned.

Therefore “the change made, p. 25, 26, in the happy condition of
the Ægyptians, the transportation of 7 or 8 millions of every
age, sex, condition, rank; infants, children, decrepit, infirm,
delicate, through the scorching sands of a parched up country,”
is the mere fiction of imagination, to palliate the still more
shocking conduct of the writer’s patrons of Leverpool. The Ægyptians
offered themselves for servants, to save themselves from starving.
His patrons force the Africans to be slaves, not as he says, from
“a state of absolute indigence,” but reduced from plenty and ease
to famine, nakedness, and want, by stripes, fetters, cruelty and
oppression.

Page 28. It is said, “Joseph, when able to relieve them, took
advantage of the extreme indigence of the Ægyptians, to reduce them
into the condition of slaves, and in this acted by the immediate
direction of God, who made this work to prosper.” Supposing all this
true, yet there is nothing common between this transaction and the
Leverpool African commerce; but the author’s having given them one
common name, “slave-trade.” The Ægyptians, after a fair transfer of
themselves and goods, are left in full possession of their lands and
property, on paying such a rent as would act as a spur to industry,
while it checked that luxury which the author describes, p. 25, as
prevailing in Ægypt. The Leverpool slaves are reduced from freedom to
a base, helpless, unprofitable, wretched state.

When this writer, p. 27, considers the four-fifths of the produce
left with the Ægyptian farmer, as only equivalent to the keep of
a West-Indian slave, he must raise a blush on the sugar planter’s
cheek; who willingly would leave but one fifth, (the rum) both to
support his plantation stock, and maintain his slaves.

But let Joseph’s conduct be what the writer pleases to describe it.
He was not the legislator of Ægypt, but the minister of Pharaoh, and
obliged to govern himself by the prevailing customs of the kingdom.
It appears, he extended only the king’s revenues, and gave him such
a command over the property of the people, as might enable him to
arrange the management of it to the best general advantage. This
might be peculiarly proper in Ægypt, though not necessary to be
imitated here. Its fertility depended on the equal distribution of
the waters of the Nile. It was necessary for the general benefit,
that there should be an indisputed power to direct the course of the
various canals, which communicated the water to each district. While
the king had an equal interest in all, no particular part would be
neglected. Joseph gives four-fifths of the produce, “for feed of the
field, and for your food, and for them of your housholds, and for
food for your little ones.” This confines the peoples share to their
own maintenance, and the supply of seed. We are left to conclude,
that every expense attending the distribution of the river, except
perhaps manual labour, was paid out of the king’s fifth part: and
as in all good governments, the interest of the king and the people
is one, Joseph, by his nominal purchase of the people and their
lands, might probably have in view such an accession of power, as
might enable him to direct the whole to general advantage. After the
charter was confirmed, no ill use could be made of the power, and
an English farmer would gladly pay one-fifth of his produce to him
who should stock his farm, and pay his rent, and all his publick and
parish taxes.

Page 38. “The Jews are not restrained from purchasing their own
brethren.” The Jews were commanded to treat their brethren, when
reduced to a six years servitude, with lenity, as hired or free
servants, and to send them out in the sabbatical year free, and not
let them go away empty. The only cases in which we can suppose Jews
could be made to serve, are their being sold for debt, or their
preferring the service of a master to labour on their own account.
In these cases, the laws of Moses take care of them, that they be
not oppressed, and, besides the original purchase-money of their
services, to have a recompence when the period is finished.

It is in this case of an Hebrew servant, that we are to look for the
genuine Mosaic principles of slavery. Even here the law expresses
a jealousy of the master’s conduct, and guards against the abuse
of his authority, restricting it to six years, and prescribing the
manner of exercising it. Therefore when the Jews are allowed to
make perpetual slaves of the Heathen, we are to consider it as a
particular dispensation respecting their situation among idolaters,
by which, in every slave, they made a proselyte to the true religion;
or like divorces, an indulgence to their hardness of heart, which
was not then capable of the purity and benevolence of the gospel, by
which, marriage was made perpetual, and all men were to be treated as
brethren. We can infer the doctrine of perpetual slavery as little
from its permission to the Jews, as we can the keeping of concubines
from the practice of Abraham, or David. Divorces are permitted to the
Jews in similar expressions with the permission to hold slaves; yet
our Saviour tells us, it was not so from the beginning. Moses (Deut.
xvii. 14.) gives directions for the choice and duty of a king, yet
Samuel tells the Jews, they had offended God in asking for a king.
And though God condescended to give them a king in a manner which
more unequivocally shewed his assent, than that approbation, sanction
and command, which the author incautiously affirms to be given to
the “slave-trade;” yet Samuel concludes them to be not the less
guilty, for persevering in the request. We should be more careful
than this author shews himself, how we apply our ignorant conjectures
to the divine conduct; as p. 16, “Without allowing the licitness
of the slave-trade, it is impossible to reconcile the justice of
God with his own scriptural decisions concerning its nature;” that
(p. 32) “God, without a glaring opposition to the rights of his
justice, could not have approved the conduct of Joseph in enslaving
the Ægyptians, and inflicted a lasting punishment on Reuben for his
incest, if his enslaving of the Ægyptians had been a crime.” These
expressions would be shocking from an infidel; in what an horrid
cause doth a clergyman use them?

The minds of the Jews had been broken and debased by the Egyptian
bondage; the law was given them as a school-master to train them
up for the perfect religion of the gospel. Their conduct in the
wilderness, their frequent rebellions amidst miracles, and in the
immediate presence of their Divine Deliverer, can only be imagined
by those who have had opportunities of seeing how man is shorn of
his worth by slavery. Only two men of all who were grown up when
they came out of Egypt, were thought deserving to enter into Canaan.
That whole generation must be worn out in the wilderness; and their
children must be trained for 40 years before they are permitted to
take possession. Their laws therefore respected the hardness of
their hearts, though founded on principles which led insensibly
to perfection. Thus while the perpetuity of the servitude of the
Heathens condescended to the hardness of their hearts, the easy
temporary service of their brethren looked forward to the gospel
times, not differing, but in being for a fixed period, from modern
servitude for wages in free states.

Therefore when this writer, p. 39. calls this latter service, “A
Slave Trade;” the meaning of the terms is perverted. Or let him
reduce his Leverpool slave trade to the circumstances of a Jew
serving his brother for six years, and we shall have few objections
to bring against it. What he calls there “selling him again,” was
transferring his service to another brother (not an Heathen) for the
remainder of the term, as an apprentice is turned over to a second
master.

Page 40. “If a Hebrew servant had married a wife with consent of his
master, she and her child became her master’s property for ever.”
This seems not to be candidly expressed. This wife must have been an
Heathen slave, for Hebrew women had the privilege of the Sabbatical
year; but if he chose to continue with his wife, he had only to renew
his contract with his master. Indeed the regulation appears to have
been intended as a check to the connection with slaves in the poor
reduced Hebrews.

Page 41, 42. When he speaks of the (Leverpool) “slave trade having
the sanction of being encouraged, almost commanded, and even
enjoined, to be prosecuted by the Supreme Legislator,” he puts
opposition to silence. But when, p. 43. he talks of “the Almighty’s
forgetting himself, when he encouraged the slave trade, if it be a
crime,” I am happy for his sake to recollect, that the author tells
us, till he was 27 years old, he knew not the value of an English
expression.

Page 43. The slavery of the Gibeonites.

The land of Canaan was allotted to the Jews for an inheritance.
The former inhabitants, for their sins, were to be extirpated, or
expelled. The Gibeonites preferred slavery to this. Their services
were allotted first to the tabernacle, then to the temple. It appears
from David’s application to them, on account of the famine brought on
the land for Saul’s massacre of them, that they were kept distinct as
a people. We may suppose that they continued to occupy part of their
ancient possessions (for we find in David’s time that even Araunah
a Jebusite was a proprietor of land) and that they were in their
turn draughted off for the service of religion; those who occupied
the lands maintaining those who served. There is not one common
circumstance between the manner of their becoming servants, and the
present Leverpool slave trade, and hardly any more in their treatment.

Page 50. On the supposition of the iniquity of the (Leverpool) “slave
trade,” he speaks of the Almighty disturbing the course of nature,
when the sun stood still at Joshua’s command, to make it subservient
to injustice and oppression, in vindication of ill-gotten property.
Here he may be assured the horror of the expression will secure him
from contradiction.

Page 54. “The slave trade,” (still Leverpool slave trade) “is in
perfect harmony with the principles of the word of God respecting
justice.” P. 58. “The inspired writers of the New Testament did not
consider it as an infraction of the principles of the gospel.” Nor
did these declare their own persecution for righteousness sake, to be
an infraction of the principles of the gospel. The keeping of slaves,
which the author constantly calls “the slave trade,” was a custom
then generally prevalent over the world. Neither were masters or
slaves prepared for a general manumission. The spirit of Christianity
was suffered gradually to undermine this mass of oppression, and
wherever the gospel has prevailed, it has in fact abolished it.

We have a similar instance of this management, in the abolition
of the ceremonial law of Moses. The first disciples, and even the
apostles, conformed to it, though they had declared it to be an
unnecessary yoke, and they suffered it to wear out gradually. That
slavery was an evil, and therefore a sin in all those who inflicted
it on others, in such a degree as to become an evil, is plainly
declared in the gospel. Our Saviour tells the believing Jews, If ye
continue in my word, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free; or shall confer new privileges on you. If freedom
be a privilege or an advantage, slavery is a degradation and a
disadvantage. But if a man be degraded or injured for the caprice or
profit of another, that other, under whom he suffers such injury, is
guilty of a sin.

Again, St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 21., says, “Art thou called being a
servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it
rather.” Here is plainly a direction to the disciples to submit to
their situation, but to prefer freedom when fairly offered; which
in this case was its being purchased for them by the Christian
congregation. This is explained, ver. 23. “Ye are bought with a
price, be not (Greek become not) ye the servants of men.” Avoid a
situation which must debase your mind. In the Revelations, xviii.
13. slaves and souls of men are said to be articles of traffick in
Babylon, the Mother of Abominations. This supposeth nothing very
excellent in slavery, to make it be approved of, and commanded to be
prosecuted by God.

We may now account for the manner in which St. Paul applies to
Philemon in behalf of his servant Onesimus. He desires him to
receive him back into his family, not now as a servant, but above a
servant; a profitable inmate, a brother beloved. He would not take
advantage of the privilege of an apostle, to withhold Onesimus from
his service, or consider his conversion as a bar to it, and therefore
endeavours to effect a reconciliation between them. But from the
manner in which the apostle solicits this favour, it is clear the
situation of Onesimus in the family was desirable; for he requests
it as a favour to Onesimus, and considers not his interposition,
as the conferring of an obligation on Philemon. All this is very
opposite to that West-Indian slavery with which this of Onesimus, p.
65. is compared. For the master only is considered here; neither the
feelings nor profit of the slave is taken into account.

Page 72, 73. I shall not dispute his exposition of doing as we wish
to be done by, as far as it goes, of “a slave’s serving his master,
as he if a master would wish to be served.” But I would carry it a
step farther. As I, a free man, settled with my family and friends
about me in my native country, would not wish to be kidnapped, or to
have my family enslaved, separated, and carried bound neck and heel,
and stifled in the foul air of a ship’s hold, all to be sold in a
distant country, to toil incessantly for a man we never knew, without
food or raiment, except such scraps as we may procure by breaking
the sabbath; under the lash of any unfeeling boy, who may be set
over us with a whip in his hand; so would not I be concerned in any
such cruel oppressive inhuman treatment of others. When this author
publishes his Second Part, it is to be hoped, this will be pressed
home on his Leverpool patrons.

It is curious to remark, that in these researches, in which the
wisdom and goodness of God is so freely applied to the Leverpool
slave trade, there is not even a distant hint given of the purpose
which is to be served by slavery, to shew it to be worthy “of this
divine approbation, the almost divine commands.” When God commands
us to love our neighbour, our heart goes along with the precept. But
if, as this author incautiously affirms, we be commanded to exercise
the slave trade, bow down our brother’s body in bondage, and treat
him ill, as Sarah did Hagar with impunity, we have no clue to trace
out the agreement of the doctrine with divine goodness. If commanded
or enjoined to use the slave trade as it is now carried on, we are
commanded, (horrid even in the supposition) to commit murder, to
starve, oppress, suffocate, and lead into exile, our brother, who
never offended us. Suppose slavery approved of in revelation, yet
surely robbery, murder, and oppression, are not approved there: and
yet no man is originally reduced into a state of slavery but by such
methods:—at least, when the advocates for slavery plead for a divine
sanction to it, they should be able to lay down a method of making
slaves of others, which shall be innocent, and may deserve that
sanction.

The Jews, for their sins, were given up to captivity. Their cities
were to be destroyed, their princes murdered, and their people
carried to Babylon. The prophets invited the surrounding nations to
come to the slaughter, and to the spoil. Here is a divine command in
stronger terms than can be shewn for the Leverpool slave trade, or
any other slave trade or holding of slaves. Yet what follows. These
very nations thus invited, and even commanded to execute the divine
judgments on the Jews, are destined to destruction, are made to cease
as nations, for having obeyed the call to vengeance. Edom was amongst
the first in this field of blood, and slavery, and plunder. Hear the
prophet Obadiah address him:—“Thou shouldest not have laid hands
on their substance in the day of their calamity: thou shouldest not
have stood in the cross-way to cut off those of his that did escape:
thou shouldest not have delivered up those of his that did remain
in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord is near on all the
heathen;—as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee.”

The reason is plain, though instruments in God’s hands to punish
a wicked people; yet in the execution of his justice, they only
satiated their own hatred, cruelty, and avarice. Let therefore the
Leverpool slave trade be not only approved of, but even, as he says,
commanded by God; yet if the corporation, in prosecuting the infernal
business, be actuated by avarice, or any other unworthy motive, and
use cruelty, oppression, and inhumanity in the course of it, (and
let those who use the trade lay their hands on their hearts, and let
them, if they dare, deny the charge), then, sooner or later, divine
vengeance will find them out, and plunge them into ruin with all
those who encourage or abet them in it.

Page 75. Corol. 1st. “The Scriptures declare the slave trade to be
intrinsically good and licit.” Not in any other manner than Jewish
arbitrary divorces, plurality of wives, or their original desire of a
king; all of which we know to have been wrong from the beginning.

Corol. 2d. “He is highly criminal who refuses assent to the
intrinsick licitness of the slave trade, declared in the Scriptures.”
I hope not, if he cannot find it there, and resolves not to meddle
with it, till he has discovered it.

Corol. 3d. “He who acquiesces not in the licitness of the slave
trade, disbelieves the Scriptures.” Answered in Corol. 2.

Corol. 6th. “The abuses of the slave trade not an inducement to the
Legislature to abolish it.” If the slave trade be, as it certainly
is, inseparably connected with murder, oppression, and every iniquity
that has from time to time drawn down divine vengeance on guilty
nations; and if the Legislature be instructed in the nature of it,
and be called on to put a stop to this murder and oppression, and
cannot possibly do it but by the abolition of the slave trade,
(were the slave trade even commanded in the clearest terms, which
is not the case, but the contrary) then is the Legislature obliged,
and called on by every motive of religion and prudence, to put an
immediate stop to it, that it may not bring ruin on the state.


                                FINIS.




_Books by J. Ramsay._


An ESSAY on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the
British Sugar Colonies. 4s. Boards.

A REPLY to the Personal Invectives and Objections contained in two
Answers, published by certain anonymous Persons, to an Essay on the
Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves, in the British Colonies.
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An INQUIRY into the Effects of putting a Stop to the African Slave
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A LETTER to James Tobin, Esq. late Member of His Majesty’s Council in
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A MANUAL for African Slaves. 2d.

OBJECTIONS to the Abolition of the Slave Trade, with Answers. Second
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_Also lately published by the same Author_,

A VOLUME of SEA SERMONS; sold by Rivingtons, St. Paul’s Church-yard.

ESSAY on a SEA OFFICER’s DUTY; sold by Robinsons, Paternoster-Row.




TRACTS

ON THE

SLAVE TRADE,

Published by J. PHILLIPS, George-Yard, Lombard-Street.


An ESSAY on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, by T. Clarkson.
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An ESSAY on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species,
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OBSERVATIONS on a Guinea Voyage; in a Series of Letters, addressed to
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