In one of the slave-ships was a person of consequence; a
man, once high in a military station, and with a mind not insensible to
the eminence of his rank. He had been taken captive and sold; and was
then in the hold, confined promiscuously with the rest. Happening in the
night to fall asleep, he dreamed that he was in his own country; high in
honour and command; caressed by his family and friends; waited on by his
domestics; and surrounded with all his former comforts in life. But
awaking suddenly, and finding where he was, he was heard to burst into
the loudest groans and lamentations on the miserable contrast of his
present state; mixed with the meanest of his subjects; and subjected to
the insolence of wretches a thousand times lower than himself in every
kind of endowment. He appealed to the House, whether this was not as
moving a picture of the miserable effects of the Slave Trade, as could
be well imagined. There was one way, by which they might judge of it.
Let them make the case their own. This was the Christian rule of
judging; and, having mentioned Christianity, he was sorry to find that
any should suppose, that it had given countenance to such a system of
oppression.
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