comforts of life, and will at the fame time raife in the poffeffors, a bravery of foul to protect and defend that country, from which they derive a folid property in so many valuable acquifitions.

It must therefore be an undeniable maxim, that we are bound in prudence and duty to encrease this commerce to to the utmost, especially between the mother country and her colonies, since thereby many mutual advantages will arise to both; and it is equally clear, that it is our interest to reftrain the trade of France, our natural enemy, as much as we poffibly can; actively, by preventing their encroachments; paffively, by encouraging and enabling our own merchants to rival and oppose, if not exceed them at foreign markets.

The IMPORTANCE of the TRADE from GREAT BRITAIN to AFRICA.

I

F the benefits of foreign commerce are fo great, and fo effentially neceffary to the fupport of Great Britain and her Colonies, and the improvements therein so restrictive of our enemies power, if difpofed, to hurt us, how vaft is the importance of our trade to Africa, which is the first principle and foundation of all the reft; the main fpring of the machine, which fets every wheel in motion: a trade which arifes almost entirely from ourselves, our exports being chiefly

chiefly our own manufactures, or fuch as are purchased with them; and the returns gold, ivory, wax, dyeing woods and negroes: the four first articles of home consumption, or manufactured for exporting; the last affording a most prodigious employment to our people, both by fea and land: without whom our plantations could not be improved or carried on, nor fhould we have any fhipping paffing between the colonies, and mother country; whereas by their labours our fugars, tobacco, and numberless other articles are raised, which employ an incredible number of ships, and these ships in their turn muft employ a much greater number of handicraft trades at home; and the merchandizes they bring home and carry out, pay fuch confiderable fums to government, that of them confift the most flourishing branches of the revenue; so that both for exports and imports, the improvement of our national revenue, the encouragement of industry at home, the fupply of our colonies abroad, and the increase of our navigation; the African trade is so very beneficial to Great Britain, so effentially neceffary to the very being of her colonies, that without it neither could we flourish, nor they long subsist.

There is also one very peculiar advantage in this trade, which is this; we need never fear that Africa will rival us, for it produces no one commodity fimilar to the productions of Great Britain, and confequently fhould any colonies be established there, they can never through any oppofition of interests be under the neceffity, or have the leaft defire to throw off their fubordination to their mother country. 5

In

numerous.

In this trade great improvements might be introduced, were we properly to attend to, and encourage them. Confider the vaft continent of Africa, the extent of coaft within the limits of our trade by act of parliament, (from Port Sallee in Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, both inclufive) an extent of near three thoufand leagues, moft advantageously fituated for commerce, the inland parts rich in gold, and other very valuable commodities beyond defcription, watered with innumerable rivers navigable for many leagues up the country, the foil amazingly fruitful, and the people From a concurrence of fuch circumftances what advantages may not be expected? The French were fully fenfible of this, and in the year 1701 presented a memorial to their government wherein they alledge," their Weft “India Islands cannot fubfift, unless due encouragement " is given to the African trade;" in confequence of which they had many privileges granted them then, and a few years ago, the bounties and exemptions allowed to them for that trade were estimated very little fhort of 45,000l. annually. If France has deemed this trade of such importance to her, it must be of much greater to us, who may be said to fubfist only as a maritime power. In the name then of the British merchants trading to Africa, in the name of our country and colonies, let me humbly address the government to make this trade more the object of their attention ; which in it's prefent ftate is productive of so many

* ad

vantages,

*For the number of ships employed and other particulars, the Appendix is referred to, that the thread of the argument may not be broken by inferting them

vantages, and is capable of great improvement, both by removing those difficulties, under which it at present labours, and by carrying into execution many plans that might be suggested. In what light then but in that of enemies to their country can we look on those, who, under the specious plea of establishing universal freedom, endeavour to strike at the root of this trade, the foundation of our commerce, the fupport of our colonies, the life of our navigation, and first cause of our national industry and riches? What vain pretence of liberty * can infatuate people to run into fo much licentiousness, as to affert a trade is unlawful, which custom immemorial, and various acts of parliament have ratified and given a fanction to? Could they support their enthusiastic arguments from scripture, antient ufage, or the laws of the land, the African trade would foon be effectually ruined, for at present the richest adventurers in it are fuch men, as would scorn to be engaged in any pursuit, but what the laws of God and man would fully fanctify; and were this trade contrary

to

in this part of the work; and indeed this being only a brief state of facts, (all which are or can be proved) and the Appendix containing most of those proofs, that will probably be the longest of the two. See letter (A) in the Appendix.

* One of the French kings, through a fort of vanity peculiar to that nation, issued an edict, that throughout his realm the Franks, as free by name, should be all declared freemen: yet the king of France remains a moft defpotic monarch, and his people the worft of flaves; and the legality of foreign flavery is admitted there, for by a law in France, no African flave can be imported without a fecurity of his being fent back again in two or three years at farthest. The laft step we should be wife enough to follow: the first our Gracious King can never take, as it implies a manifest absurdity.

to those laws, were it even cruel or inhuman, near a million of money might be withdrawn from it in a fhort time, and a ftagnation of cash at home, and utter ruin in our colonies abroad must inevitably enfue.

CHA P. II.

The LEGALITY of the AFRICAN TRADE.

ON

N this head I fhall leave declamation to my opponents, w hofe caufe requires the florid force of oratory for one plain reafon—because it has no truth to fupport it. They have indeed the specious, and I the invidious fide of the question : they attack the tender feelings of misinformed humanity; I appeal to ftrict justice, arifing from custom immemorial and pofitive laws it were enough for me, were I totally to drop the confideration of justice, and apply to the law only as it now ftands, but I disclaim the one without the other, and to prove that neither have as yet abolished the idea of slavery, or established that of univerfal freedom, in a fummary way I fhall barely ftate plain facts and argue from them.

The earliest ages had their * flaves, both taken in war and purchased with money, and it has been the universal practice of not only every barbarous but every civilized nation. By the law of Mofes the Ifraelites might purchase slaves from the heathens, and even their own people might become flaves

to

* For a more ample difcuffion of this, fee the Appendix letter B. where Mercator's letters, and obfervations on them are inferted, as they would take up too much room here.