The History of the Abolition of African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament. Thomas Clarkson
language, they were wretched and helpless; but Anthony Benezet endeavoured to soften the rigour of their situation, by his kind attention towards them. He exerted himself, also, in their behalf, by procuring many contributions for them, which, by the consent of his fellow-citizens, were intrusted to his care.
As the principle of benevolence, when duly cultivated, brings forth fresh shoots, and becomes enlarged, so we find this amiable person extending the sphere of his usefulness by becoming an advocate for the oppressed African race. For this service he seems to have been peculiarly qualified. Indeed, as in all great works, a variety of talents is necessary to bring them to perfection, so Providence seems to prepare different men as instruments, with dispositions and qualifications so various, that each, in pursuing that line which seems to suit him best, contributes to furnish those parts which, when put together, make up a complete whole. In this point of view, John Woolman found in Anthony Benezet the coadjutor whom, of all others, the cause required. The former had occupied himself principally on the subject of slavery. The latter went to the root of the evil, and more frequently attacked the trade. The former chiefly confined his labours to America, and chiefly to those of his own society there. The latter, when he wrote, did not write for America only, but for Europe also, and endeavoured to spread a knowledge and hatred of the traffic through the great society of the world.
One of the means which Anthony Benezet took to promote the cause in question, (and an effectual one it proved, as far as it went,) was to give his scholars a due knowledge and proper impressions concerning it. Situated as they were likely to be in after-life, in a country where, slavery, was a custom, he thus prepared many, and this annually, for the promotion of his plans.
To enlighten others, and to give them a similar bias, he had recourse to different measures from time to time. In the almanacs published annually in Philadelphia, he procured articles to be inserted, which he believed would attract the notice of the reader, and make him pause, at least for a while, as to the licitness of, the Slave Trade. He wrote also, as he saw occasion, in the public papers of the day. From small things he proceeded to greater. He collected, at length, further information on the subject, and, winding it up with observations and reflections, he produced several little tracts, which he circulated successively (but generally at his, own expense), as he considered them adapted to the temper and circumstances of the times.
In the course of this his employment, having found some who had approved his tracts, and, to whom, on that account, he wished to write, and sending his tracts to others, to whom he thought it proper to introduce them by letter, he found himself engaged in a correspondence which much engrossed his time, but which proved of great importance in procuring many advocates for his cause.
In the year 1762, when he had obtained a still greater store of information, he published a larger work. This, however, he entitle A short Account of that part of Africa inhabited by the Negroes In 1767 he published A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her colonies on the calamitous state of the enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions; and soon after this appeared, An Historical Account of Guinea, its Situation, Produce, and the general Disposition of its Inhabitants: with an Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, its Nature, and Calamitous Effects. This pamphlet contained a clear and distinct development of the subject, from the best authorities. It contained also, the sentiments of many enlightened upon it; and it became instrumental beyond any other book ever before published, in disseminating a proper knowledge and detestation of this trade.
Anthony Benezet may be considered as one of the most zealous, vigilant, and active advocates which the cause of the oppressed Africans ever had. He seemed to have been born and to have lived for the promotion of it and therefore he never omitted any the least opportunity of serving it. If a person called upon him who was going a journey his first thoughts usually were how he could make him an instrument in its favour; he either gave him tracts to distribute or he sent letters by him, or he gave him some commission on the subject; so that he was the means of employing several persons at the same time, in various parts of America; in advancing the work he had undertaken.
In the same manner he availed himself of every other circumstance, as far as he could, to the same end. When he heard that Mr. Granville Sharp had obtained; in the year 1772, the noble verdict in the cause of Somerset the slave, he opened a correspondence with him which he kept up, that there might be an union of action between them for the future, as far as it could be effected, and that they might each give encouragement to the other to proceed.
He opened also a correspondence with George Whitfield and John Wesley that these might assist him in promoting the cause of the oppressed.
He wrote also a letter to the Countess of Huntingdon on the following subject: — She had founded a college, at the recommendation of George Whitfield, called the Orphan-house near Savannah, in Georgia, and had endowed it. The object of this institution was to furnish scholastic instruction to the poor, and to prepare some of them for the ministry. George Whitfield, ever attentive to the cause of the poor Africans, thought that this institution might have been useful to them also; but soon after his death, they who succeeded him bought slaves, and these in unusual numbers to extend the rice and indigo plantations belonging to the college. The letter then in question was written by Anthony Benezet, in order to lay before the Countess, as a religious woman, the misery she was occasioning in Africa, by allowing the managers of her college in Georgia to give encouragement to the Slave Trade. The Countess replied, that such a measure should never have her countenance, and that she would take care to prevent it.
On discovering that the Abbé Raynal had brought out his celebrated work, in which he manifested a tender feeling in behalf of the injured Africans, he entered into a correspondence with him, hoping to make him yet more useful to their cause.
Finding, also, in the year 1783 that the Slave Trade, which had greatly declined during the American war, was reviving, he addressed a pathetic letter to our Queen, (as I mentioned in the last chapter,) who, on hearing the high character of the writer of it from Benjamin West, received it with marks of peculiar condescension and attention. The following is a copy of it: —
TO CHARLOTTE, QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN.
Impressed with a sense of religious duty, and encouraged by the opinion generally entertained of thy benevolent disposition to succor the distressed, I take the liberty; very respectfully, to offer to thy perusal some tracts, which, I believe, faithfully describe the suffering condition of many hundred thousands of our fellow-creatures of the African race, great numbers of whom, rent from every tender connexion in life, are annually taken from their native land; to endure, in the American islands and plantations, a most rigorous and cruel slavery; whereby many, very many of them, are brought to a melancholy and untimely end.
When it is considered that the inhabitants of Great Britain, who are themselves so eminently blessed in the enjoyment of religious and civil liberty, have long been, and yet are, very deeply concerned in this flagrant violation of the common rights of mankind, and that even its national authority is exerted in support of the African Slave Trade, there is much reason to apprehend that this has been, and, as long as the evil exists, will continue to be, an occasion of drawing down the Divine displeasure on the nation and its dependencies. May these considerations induce thee to interpose thy kind endeavours in behalf of this greatly injured people, whose abject situation gives them an additional claim to the pity and assistance of the generous mind, inasmuch as they are altogether deprived of the means of soliciting effectual relief for themselves; that so thou mayest not only be a blessed instrument in the hand of him 'by whom kings reign and princes decree justice,' to avert the awful judgments by which the empire has already been so remarkably shaken, but that the blessings of thousands ready to perish may come upon thee, at a time when the superior advantages attendant on thy situation in this world will no longer be of any avail to thy consolation and support.
To the tracts on this subject to which I have thus ventured to crave thy particular attention, I have added some which at different times I have believed it my duty to publish5, and which, I trust, will afford thee some satisfaction, their design being for the furtherance of that universal peace and good-will amongst men, which the Gospel was intended to introduce.
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