terms: "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be fold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to ferve as a bond-servant, but as an hired fervant and as a fojourner he shall be with thee, and shall ferve thee unto the year of jubilee: and then fhall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the poffeffion of his fathers fhall he return. For they are my fervants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they fhall not be fold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour, but shalt fear thy God. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, fhall be of the heathen that are round you: of them fhall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do fojourn among ye, of them shall ye buy and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your poffeffion: And ye fhall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a poffeffion; they shall be your bondmen for ever; but over your brethren the children of Ifrael ye shall not rule one over another with rigour. If thy brother felleth himfelf to the ftranger or fojourner by thee, he may be redeemed again, and if he be not redeemed, then he fhall go out in the year of jubilee,

both he and his children with him. For unto me the children of Ifrael are fervants, they are my fervants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God."

This is fo clear as to need no comment: there is a positive order to let the children of Ifrael go free for this plain reason, that they are the fervants of the Lord their God: he redeemed them, and his they are, and are only to perform a reasonable time of fervitude; but of the nations round about, or dwelling among them, they are to purchase bond-fervants, which are to be their poffeffion, and like other goods and chattels descend to their heirs for ever, as was the cafe of the Gibeonites, who were made perpetual * flaves, (being hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation) and as fuch, exempted from the toll demanded of other free fubjects; and though they separated themselves from the customs of the

4

Joshua ix, 21. Ezra vii. 24. Nehem. x. 18.

the heathen and walked in the law of God, were yet, under the name of Nethinim, continued in the same state of flavery and service of the altar as long as the temple itself exifted. As to flavery, then thus ftands that law, of which Mofes faid, "Behold I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that

ye fhould

do fo in the land, whither ye go to poffefs it. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the fight of the nations which shall hear all thefe ftatutes, and fay, Surely this great nation is a wife and understanding people: For what nation is there fo great, who hath God fo nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there fo great, that hath statutes and judgments fo righteous, as all this law which I fet before you this day ?"

Thus ftands that law, of which a greater than Mofes faid, "Think not that I am come to deftroy the law and the prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfil, for I fay unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle fhall in no wife pafs away from the law till all be fulfilled." And if flavery had been contrary to justice, which is the true humanity; if it had been contrary to Chriftian charity, which is as much fuperior to the boasted humanity of philosophy as diamonds to glass, instead of enforcing the laws delivered to the Jews by his heavenly Father, our gracious lawgiver would have repealed that part of it, as well as the carnal ordinances it enjoined. Shall we then strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Shall we retain an indented fervant, who is one of our brethren, in hard and disagreeable fervice; and yet under a vain pretence of liberty, fet an alien free at once, whofe whole time we have purchased? Shall we for a trifling debt enflave a brother for life in a loathsome prison, and give an alien by inftant freedom fuch privileges as are fuperior to any which we enjoy ourselves? Forbid it, heaven! forbid it, national justice! Caft out the bondwoman and her fons, and let them not have a fuperiority or even a portion among us. Let them have no footing in England. They have enough abroad, for their privileges in our colonies are already much fuperior to any they enjoy in their own country. Look at them in Africa: there those indeed are fold who are flaves by descent, or have

com

committed fuch villainies, as the laws of their own country condemn them to flavery for. There they have no chance of ever being free; there they have no fort of property, and their very lives are fubject to their masters caprice without fear of punishment, or being in any degrée accountable. Some indeed are captives taken in war, whom if we did not purchase, they would maffacre. The barbarity of their own masters1 makes them think we buy them only to eat thein, and this mistakennotion is the only thing that tempts them to rife in mutiny. But of all those who have purchased their freedom, or whom the liberality of their mafters has made free, not one individual ever yet returned or wished to return to their own country; nor would any one of them accept of their freedom on fuch terms: a plain proof, that they are in a much better fituation than ever they could poffibly expect to be if at home. For with'' us, though flaves, their property is facred; and numbers, in an actual ftate of flavery, have property to the amount of three, four or five hundred pounds fterling, who yet will not buy their liberty, though they could have it for one fifth of what they are poffeffed of: With us their lives* are fecured by our laws; and with us they are maintained when old and past their labour. When we have heaped fo many advantages on them, shall we inconfiderately make them equal to ourselves, nay, give them at fuperiority, and make them our mafters? Who are we that judge other men's fervants? By their own laws they are fuch. I do not defcend to the sophisms or gloffes of the law, but go to the fountain head and foundation of all law, to that facred book, which once was esteemed worthy of being our guide, and the nearer to which human laws approached, themore pure they formerly were adjudged to be: And I cannot doubt but that unprejudiced truth, flowing from fuch a fountain, will bear down the oppofition of licentioufnefs and folly, though tricked out in the borrowed garb of liberty and humanity.

If then we have the laws of God on our fide, and if we really confer a benefit on the flaves we purchase, we may be allowed to confider in the next place how this foolishly-wished-for liberty of theirs may affect our political ftate. If we do not go beyond our duty as fubjects to the King of Heaven, we may be allowed to confult in the next place the intereft

of our King on earth, the dignity of his crown, and the welfare of his empire. This may be laid down as an axiom: If the Africans are adjudged free in Great Britain, they will not long be otherwise in the colonies. They have fense, and fome of them great abilities: all of them refolution and contempt of death. They now are with difficulty kept in subjection, but then they would to a man rebel, and allow their masters no portion of that favour, which they allow to them. They would act by their own laws. Conqueft would make them our mafters, and we fhould hold our lives and properties at their caprice, whofe fport is to do mischief, and whose wantonnefs is cruelty. A few from hence, with the arts they have learned among us, would return to the colonies, fpirit up the reft, and conquer, pillage, and deftroy, though they cannot long enjoy the fruits of their conqueft; to the utter ftagnation of trade, the deftruction of commerce, and the infinite lofs of the West-India proprietors, merchants, and others connected with them, which would be a feverer blow than we ever yet felt-a blow, which half a century would not recover, and which God in his mercy avert from us. If we should not have sense enough to maintain that a bare croffing the fea, and setting foot on British ground, shall not diveft us of our property in them, they will have ingenuity enough to escape here in shoals: They will people our island with Calibans, and Britons become a motley race, fprung from despicable fugitives and horrid miscreants, whom their own land has vomited forth. It is pity the good fenfe of individuals had not for ever prevented this coming into a question, by reftraining them within thofe limits, where only they can be useful, and where our own fubjects cannot fupport the heat, as they can.

But as it is now become a question, and we have no law to fettle it by,. let us take the fcriptures for our present guide, and I hope the good sense of the legislature will foon establish a proper law to secure that property to us, for the attaining of which we have not only the faith, but the encouragement of both houfes of parliament, with the fanction of our gracious monarch. The African trade is subject to too many inconveniencies and difcouragements, to load it with more; though indeed this rather lays. the axe to the root of it at once. Let then the legislature reflect that the

flave-trade, under proper regulations, is abfolutely and effentially neceffary not only to the well-being, but to the very existence of our colonies; that it is by much the most valuable branch of commerce which as a maritime nation we now enjoy; that in manufactures and shipping there is to the value of 100,000l. monthly exported in this trade; that it is not contrary to the laws of God, and has been ratified by thofe of men; and that freedom granted to negroes in England would totally destroy this trade throughout all our empire, and leave our natural enemies in the fole poffeffion of this our chief fource of wealth and commerce. Let the legislature think at the fame time of having those abuses rectified which have already weakened it very confiderably, and let them put fuch a heavy fine upon the master of every negro imported here as fhall amount to a prohibition; and let all negroes, though free, who presume to set a foot in England, pay the fame, or forfeit their freedom: Let Government fuperadd to the laws of God, and to the laws of Africa, fuch a law of Great Britain, as fhall preferve her pure, and make her flourishing and refpectable.

London, 25 May, 1772.

MERCATOR.

The next Tract that appeared under the fame fignature, and by the fimilarity of stile appeared to come from the same pen, was the following.

The material Part of Lord Mansfield's Speech on the Negro Caufe, with Some Thoughts on the prefent State of Slaves.

'E will pay due attention to the opinion of Sir Philip York

WE and Mr. Talbot in the Year 1729, by which they pledged

themselves to the British planters for the legal confequences of bringing negro slaves into this kingdom, or their being baptized; which opinion was repeated and recognized by Lord Hardwicke, fitting as Chancellor, October 19, 1749, to the following effect; he said that trover would lie for a negro flave; that a notion prevailed that if a flave came into England, or became a chriftian, he thereby became emancipated; but there was no foundation in law for fuch a notion; that when he and C 2

Lord