To the poem is affixed a
frontispiece, in which the negro is represented. He is made to stand in
an attitude of the most earnest address to heaven, in the course of
which, with the fatal dagger in his hand, he breaks forth in the
following words:
To you this unpolluted blood I pour,
To you that spirit, which ye gave, restore.
This poem, which was the first ever written expressly on the subject,
was read extensively; and it added to the sympathy in favour of
suffering humanity, which was now beginning to show itself in the
kingdom.
About this time the first edition of the _Essay an Truth_ made its
appearance in the world. Dr. Beattie took an opportunity, in this work,
of vindicating the intellectual powers of the Africans from the
aspersions of Hume, and of condemning their slavery as a barbarous piece
of policy, and as inconsistent with the free and generous spirit of the
British nation.
In the year 1774, John Wesley, the celebrated divine, to whose pious
labours the religious world will long be indebted, undertook the cause
of the poor Africans. He had been in America, and had seen and pitied
their hard condition. The work which he gave to the world in
consequence, was entitled _Thoughts on Slavery_.
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