that no slave could be held in England itself). In 1713, she made a treaty with Spain to supply the Spanish colonies, in thirty years, with 144,000 slaves.[1] Now, had England been situated on the American continent or coast, would not these English ships have brought the slaves home, into their own territory, as the Cubans now do into theirs? — and thus would not England have been filled with African slaves, just as Cuba or the United States now are? Where, then, would have been the boast concerning the free English soil":[2] We may thus see that the fact of Britain's
- ↑ Freeman's Plea for Africa, Conversation XL — In like manner, the French Guinea Company, in the year 1702, contracted to supply the Spanish West Indies, in ten years, with 38,000 negroes. In truth, all, or nearly all the nations of Europe, English, French, Italians, Dutch, Danes, Spanish, Portuguese, have been concerned more or less, in the African slave-trade. None of them, then, can with justice cast reproaches on America; for if she has been guilty of receiving the stolen goods, they have been guilty of the still greater crime of taking them.
- ↑ "When England," remarks Mr. Freeman, "introduced slavery into her American colonies, she had as much free labor at home as the landholders wished to employ; and it has been on this account, and this only, that the past was enabled to say,
'Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.'"The fact is, that respiration could go on well enough in those parts of her dominions where free labor was not to be obtained. In America was a widely extended territory, with a soil and climate adapted to the raising of the most profitable articles of commerce. In order to render the colonies an immediate and productive source of revenue, which was the settled policy of England, and on which she placed great reliance, — an immediate supply of labor was necessary. As an expedient to provide for her colonial wants, she commenced filling her colonies with African slaves. She would not tolerate slavery at home, and yet would provide for and establish the evil among her distant children — How
