the whole population of England, would hardly exact more than life for life, for the innocent African blood with which we are justly chargeable.*

Mr. Edwards, estimates the total import of negroes into the British colonies, from 1680 to 1786, at 2,130,000, but admits that this is much less than was commonly supposed; and it may, I conceive, be reasonably taken at three millions. In 1787, the importation was 21,023. History of West Indies, vol. 2, book 4, chap. 2.) From 1795 to 1804, the numbers carried from Africa in British ships, were 380,893. (West India Common Place Book, page 8.) and these may be presumed to have been chiefly carried to colonies then in our possession; because our foreign slave trade was, during that period, chiefly carried on under American and other neutral colours.

I cannot immediately refer to any authentic information as to the state of the trade during the two last years, or during the years from 1788 to 1794 inclusive; but as it has progressively increased during the last twenty years, it will be a very moderate estimate to take the importation in the years last preceding each of those periods, as the average of the whole. The importation in 1787, therefore, being 21,023, that in seven years to the end of 1794, was at least 147,151; and the importation of 1804 being 36,899, we must add 73,798 for the two last years. We have thus

How many of these have prematurely perished by the seasoning, or from the subsequent effects of West India slavery, cannot be ascertained; but we may guess at it from the following data. Mr. Edwards asserts, that from authentic lists of entries in his possession, there were imported into Jamaica, from 1700 to 1786, 610,000 negroes, and we canot suppose less than 100,000 to have been on the island at the commencement of that period. From 1786, to the end

It would be quite incompatible with the necessary

of 1792, the numbers imported, on the ordinary proportion which Jamaica has had of the whole British trade, could not be less than 30,000. These numbers together would give, supposing the births to equal the deaths, a population at the end of 1792 of 740,600 slaves; whereas Mr. Edwards publishing in June 1793, estimated their numbers at 250,000, being less by 490,600, than the numbers imported; and even this, was near 40,000 more than the amount of the last poll tax returns. (See History of Jamaica, vòl. i. book 2, chap. 5.) The loss, therefore, in this island, would be near two-thirds of the whole number imported, if it were not for a deduction that is due on account of the numbers re-exported; which Mr. Edwards estimates to have been in Jamaica, about one fifth part of the import. Allowing, by this rule, 128,120 to have been re-exported, the loss will be reduced to 362,480, or nearly one half.

It may perhaps be objected, that in the long period here taken, a great proportion of the whole number imported, must have died, even under the mildest treatment, and under circumstances the more favorable to longevity; and that the calculation, therefore, for the most part, only proves that the births have not equalled the deaths.

But I answer first, that it is impossible to suppose the growth of native population to have been kept down by any means, that have not at the same time shortened the lives of the adults; especially considering how extremely prolific negroes are in other places, under far less favorable circumstances of climate and local situation. Secondly, that it is an error to suppose that the difference between the numbers imported, and the remaining population, constitutes the whole loss by mortality. On the contrary, the numbers of children, born and prematurely cut off, during so long a period, in an old settled island like Jamaica, may be fairly supposed to have much more than equalled the whole import. While we deduct then from the amount of a mortality produced by oppression among the parents, we must add to that which was produced by the same cause among the children.

limits of this work to state even in the most summary

Nor is it an answer to say, that a great proportion of infants every where perish without attaining to maturity; for such a surplus of births is also found, where oppression does not exist, as more than equals the loss, and makes the rising greatly exceed the declining generation.

It is true, that among new-imported negroes the males shamefully outnumber the females; but let it be put on the other side of the account that these are almost all in the prime of life, when added to the ancient stock.

If with all the blights to which infancy is subject, and all the barrenness of age, the grove of human society is still elsewhere full of leaves from shoots of its natural growth, what luxuriance of foliage would the transplantation of such multitudes of exotic seedlings in their full bearing have produced, had they found a genial soil.

If after all, such objections should be allowed to diminish the tale of actual murder, a more than equal addition might be made on the latter view to the dreadful character of the system. It has probably hindered the increase of our species, by four times the number of millions that it has directly destroyed.

The mortality in new settled colonies, is notoriously far greater than in such as like Jamaica, have been long in cultivation; and therefore if a moiety of the imported Negroes have prematurely perished in that island, to suppose that the same proportion of all the slaves brought to our colonies in general, has met the same fate, will be probably far too low an estimate. If so, we are guilty of the blood as well as the misery, of above one million eight hundred thousand of our fellow-beings, by premature mortality, the effects of their rigorous bondage, in our colonies alone. But the dreadful account by no means ends here: for we have to add the upon the great numbers lost and passage, on the coast, prior to their departure from it, which during the long period that preceded the Slave Carrying Acts, was probably at least 15 per cent. and we have next to widen the basis of computation, by the whole amount of our trade di

C

manner, the dreadful oppression to which the unhappy expatriated Africans are doomed, in the colonies to which we carry them. A subject so copious, so important, so much misrepresented, and so little understood, requires to be illustrated in a treatise of no small extent, confined to that single object: and such a treatise I have already promised to submit to the public, unless the interests of humanity should happily cease to demand it. Meantime I will in general affirm, that our sins against that devoted race in the New World, would even exceed those with which we are justly chargeable in Africa, were it not for the consideration that they are much less generally

rectly from Africa to foreign colonies, or with foreign ships on the coast. This has always borne a large proportion to the whole of our colonial imports. By the tables furnished by Sir W. Young in his recent work, it appears, that at the two different periods to which his account of our foreign Slave Trade relates, viz. 1787 and 1802, it comprised near 4-7ths parts of all our exports from Africa. And of 20,658 Slaves supplied to foreign colonies in the latter year, only 5389 were re-exported from British Islands.

-On the whole, it may be very moderately computed that we have sent from Africa, including the vast numbers that used to be sold by our ships on the coast to the French and other foreigners, two thirds as many in all as we have imported into British Colonies; and therefore if we have carried directly to the latter 2,622, 865, we have probably expatriated in all, above six millions of these unhappy fellow-creatures. Let the loss on the passage, and in the foreign colonies, upon this additional multitude be reckoned, and then let us take into the account the enormous waste of life that must have been produced in Africa, in the reducing by war, by conflagration, massacre and all our other ordinary manufactories in that country, six millions of people in the prime of life, into a state of exportable bondage. When the whole of these dreadful items are put together, the conjecture in the text will perhaps appear to e no excessive estimate.

known in this country, and therefore less deeply affect the consciences of the people at large

If the guilt of the slave trade, in respect of the nature of the offence itself, be enormous, how much more when we consider the peculiar obligations which we have long owed as a nation to a benignant providence.

Who are the people that have provoked God thus heinously, but the same who are among all the nations of the earth, the most eminently indebted to his bounty? He has given to us an unexampled portion of civil liberty; and we in return, drag his rational creatures into a most severe and perpetual bondage. Social happiness has been showered upon us with singular profusion; and we tear from oppressed millions every social, nay almost every human comfort. In short, we cruelly reverse in our treatment of these unhappy brethren, all the gracious dealings of God towards ourselves. For our plenty we give them want; for our ease, intolerable toil; for our wealth, privation of the right of property; for our equal laws, unbridled violence and wrong. Science shines upon us, with her meridian beams; yet we keep these degraded fellow-creatures, in the deepestshades of ignorance and barbarity. Morals and manners, have happily distinguished us from the other nations of Europe; yet we create and cherish in two other quarters of the globe, an unexampled depravity of both. A contrast still more opprobrious remains. God has blessed us with the purest effulgence of the Gospel; and yet we dishonour by our slave trade the christian name; and perpetuate the darkness of paganism among millions of our fellow-crea

tures.

At this time of war, and impending danger, other strik