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can continue to vindicate a right established upon such a foundation; that a peo-
mises and threats, to prevail on them to desist from a purpose so unwarrantable and barbarous. In vain did he urge his authority and instructions from the Queen: the bold and headstrong sailors would hear of no restraints. Drunkenness and avarice are deaf to the voice of humanity. They pursue their violent design, and, after several unsuccessful attacks, in which many of them lost their lives, the cargo was at length compleated by barbarity and force.
“Hence arose that horrid and inhuman practice of dragging Africans into slavery, which has since been so pursued, in defiance of every principle of justice and religion. Had Negroes been brought from the flames, to which in some countries they were devoted on their falling prisoners of war, and in others, sacrificed at the funeral obsequies of the great and powerful among themselves; in short had they by this traffic been delivered from torture or death, European merchants might have some excuse to plead in its vindication. But according to the common mode in which it has been conducted, we must confess it a difficult matter to conceive a single argument in its defence. And though policy has given countenance and sanction to the trade, yet every candid and impartial man must confess, that it is atrocious and unjustifiable in every light in which it can be viewed, and turns merchants into a band of robbers, and trade into atrocious acts of fraud and violence.” Historical Account of South Carolina and Georgia. Anonymous. London printed in 1779—page 20, &c.
“The number of Negroe slaves bartered for in one year (viz. 1768), on the Coast of Africa from Cape
