We might find instances, indeed,
in history, of men violating the feelings of nature on extraordinary
occasions. Fathers had sacrificed their sons and daughters, and husbands
their wives; but to imitate their characters, we ought to have not only
nerves as strong as the two Brutuses, but to take care that we had a
cause as good; or that we had motives for such a dereliction of our
feelings as patriotic as those which historians had annexed to these
when they handed them to the notice of the world.
But what was our motive in the case before us?--to continue a trade
which was a wholesale sacrifice of a whole order and race of our
fellow-creatures, which carried them away by force from their native
country, in order to subject them to the mere will and caprice, the
tyranny and oppression of other human beings, for their whole natural
lives, them and their posterity for ever!! O most monstrous wickedness!
O unparalleled barbarity! And, what was more aggravating, this most
complicated scene of robbery and murder which mankind had ever
witnessed, had been honoured by the name of trade.
That a number of human beings should be at all times ready to be
furnished as fair articles of commerce, just as our occasions might
require, was absurd.
Pages:
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795