Baxters Directions to Slave-Holders

THE following expostulation with slave holders, is abstracted from the works of Richard Baxter, an eminent author, and dissenting preacher of the last century, and is now republished as an evidence that the same Divine principle which hath enlightened the minds of many in the present age, wich a sense of liberty, and influenced the • 〈◊〉 •• pose the inhumanity and injustice of the barbarous trade to Africa, for the purpose of enslaving the poor untutored Negroes, and continuing them and their offspring in bondage, was clearly seen to be unchristian and unjust, at so early a period as that in which the author wrote, viz. in 1673. And it is not because the iniquitous practice hath been since unreproved, by judicious and conscientious men, that it is not yet abolished, but rather that avarice, pride, and ignorance hath so unhappily prevailed over justice and mercy, as to continue great numbers of professing Christians in partaking of the unrighteous gain of oppression.

And in order to preserve from oblivion, and for general information, it is thought expedient to subjoin a letter from the truly pious Anthony Benezet, lately deceased, who was well known to be an uniform prudent advocate for relief of the oppressed, to the famous Abbe Raynal, with his answer, which first appeared in the Brussels gazette, of March, 1782, and from thence published in one of the news papers of this city.

Abstract from Baxter 's Christian Directory, &c. Page 557.

"Directions to those Masters, in Foreign Plantations, who have Negroes and other Slaves, being a Solution of several Cases about them.

"UNDERSTAND well how far your power over your slaves extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto; such as is a sufficient difference between men and brutes, that they are of as good a kind as you, that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty; that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with yourselves; Remember that God is their absolute owner, and that you have none but a derived and limited property in them; that they and you are equally under the government and laws of God;—Remember that God is their tender Father, and if they be as good, doth love them as well as you, and that the greater your power is over them, the greater your charge is of them, and your duty for them; the fourth Commandment requireth masters to see that all within their gates observe the Sabbath day, so must you exercise both your power and love to bring them to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and to the just obedience of God's commands.

Those therefore, that keep their Negroes and slaves from hearing God's word, and from becoming Christians, do openly profess contempt of Christ the Redeemer, and contempt of the souls of men, and indeed they declare that, their worldly profit is their treasure, and their God."

"If this comes to the hands of any of our natives in Barbadoes, or other islands and plantations, who are said to be guilty of this most heinous sin, yea, and to live upon it, entreat them further to consider, how cursed a crime it is to equal men to beasts? Is not this your practice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end as you do your horses; to labor for your commodity, as if they were baser than you and made to serve you? Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you vilify them as savages and barbarous wretches? Did they ever do anything more savage, than to use not only men's bodies as beasts, but their souls, as if they were made for nothing but to actuate their bodies in your worldly drudgery?

"Doth not the very example of such cruelty, besides your keeping them from Christianity, directly tend to teach them to hate Christianity, as if it taught men to be so much worse than dogs, or tygers?

"Do you not mark how God hath followed you with plagues? and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of so many? Remember the late fire at the bridge, in Barbadoes; Remember the drowning of your governor, loss of ships at sea, and the many judgments that have overtaken you, and at the present, the terrible mortality that is among you.

"Will not the example and warning of neighbouring countries rise up in judgment against you, and condemn you? You cannot but hear how odious the Spanish name is made (and thereby, alas! the Christian name also, among the West Indians) for their most inhuman cruelties in Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and other places, which are described by Joseph Acosta, a jesuit of their own; And what comfort are you like to have, at last, in that money which is purchased at such a price? Will not your money and you perish together? Will not you have a worse than Gehazi's leprosy, with it? Yea, worse than Achan's death by stoning; and as bad as Judas his hanging himself, unless repentance shall prevent it? Do you not remember the terrible words in Jude, " Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam; and ii. Peter, 2, 3, 14, 15, through covetousness they make merchandise of you. An heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children (or children of a curse) which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bezor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass speaking with man's voice, forbad the madness of the prophet. When you shall everyone hear, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall all these things be, which thou hast provided. Luke xii. 19, 20, 21."

"What men in the world doth James speak to, if not to you—James v. 1 to 4. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and bowl for your miseries that shall come upon you: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten: your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: Ye have heaped treasure, together for the last days: Behold the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped, have entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth; " How much more then the cry of betrayed souls?

After these animadversions on the iniquity of holding and treating men as slaves, for the private emolument of the possessors, he proceeds to consider divers cases under which men are held in bondage, from whence he adduces the following conclusions.

"A nominal Christian, who by wickedness forfeiteth his life or freedom, may penally be made a slave as well as an Infidel; and a poor and needy Christian may sell himself into a harder state of servitude than he would choose, or we could otherwise put him into; but to go aspirates, and catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thefts in the world, and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them, and use them as beasts for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate Devils, than Christians.

He then queries; "But what if men buy Negroes, or other slaves, of such as we have just cause to believe did steal them by piracy, or buy them of those who have no power to sell them, and not hire, or buy them by their own consent, or by the consent of those who had power to sell them, nor take them captives.

And answers, "It is their heinous fin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them from slavery; having done it, undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because, by right, the man is his own, and therefore, no man else can have a just title to him.

Question, "But may I not sell him again, and make my money of him, seeing I leave him as I found him—?

Answer, "No; Because when you have taken possession of him, and he becomes a pretended property, then the injury that is done him is by you, which, before, was only by another; and though' the wrong be no greater than the other did him, yet, being done by you, it is your sin.

Question, "But may I not return him to him that I bought him of?

Answer, "No; for that is but injuring him, by delivering him to another to continue the injury: To say as Pilate (I am innocent of the blood of this just man) will be no proof of your innocence: Yea, God's law bindeth you to love, and works of love, and therefore you should do your best to free him. He that is bound to help to save a man that is fallen into the hands of thieves, by the high way, if he should buy that man, as a slave, of the thieves, may not after, give him up to thieves again.

"If they be Infidels, use them so as tendeth to win them to Christ, and the love of religion, by showing them that Christians are less worldly, less cruel and less passionate, and more wise, charitable, holy and meek than any other persons are. Woe to them, who by their cruelty, and covetousness, do scandalize even slaves, and hinder their conversion and salvation. Remember that even a slave may be one of those neighbors that you are bound to love as yourselves, and to do unto as you would be done by, if your case was his, which, if you do, you will need no more direction for his relief."

THE CASE OF THE OPPRESSED AFRICANS.

WE are engaged, under a sense of duty, to bear a public testimony against a species of oppression which, under the sanction of national authority, has long been exercised upon the natives of Africa, is grown up into a system of tyranny, and is unhappily become a considerable branch of the commerce of this kingdom: An oppression which, in the injustice of its origin, and the inhumanity of its progress, has not, we apprehend, been exceeded, or even equalled, in the most barbarous ages.

We are taught, both by the holy scriptures, and by the experience of ages, to believe that the Righteous Judge of the whole earth chastiseth nations for their sins, as well as individuals; and can it be expected that he will suffer this great iniquity to go unpunished? As the design of the institution of government is for a terror to evil doers, and the praise of them that do well, we wish it may be seriously considered, whether this has been made the rule of its administration in this land. Will it not rather be found, on inquiry, that, with respect to the enslaved Negroes, its benevolent purposes have been perverted; that its terrors have fallen on the innocent, while evil doers, and oppressors, have been openly encouraged?

But notwithstanding, government, in former times, have been induced by, what we conceive to be a mistaken, as well as an unjust, policy, to promote this evil, we are persuaded that many of the present members of the legislature, as true friends of civil and religious liberty, hold this unrighteous traffic in the utmost abhorrence. This persuasion, joined to the favorable reception of the petition of our last Yearly-meeting, to the House of Commons, encourages us to address you, thus freely, on this important subject; and we apprehend that the abolition of this iniquitous practice is not only required by the calls of justice and humanity, but is also consistent with sound policy. For avarice in this, as in other instances, has defeated its own purpose. Africa, so populous, and so rich in vegetable and mineral productions, instead of affording all the advantages of a well regulated commerce, is scarcely known but as a mart for slaves, and as the scene of violence and barbarities, perpetrated, in order to procure them, by men professing the Christian religion.

The arguments which have been advanced by the few writers, who have attempted to justify this inhuman business, can have no weight with generous minds. Those, in particular, which are drawn from the permission to hold slaves among the Jews, can in no wise be applied to the practice amongst us: For, blessed be the God and Father of all our mercies, who hath made of one blood all nations of men, we now live under a dispensation essentially different from that of the law; in which many things were permitted to the Jews, because of the the hardness of their hearts. All distinctions of name and country, so far as they relate to the social duties, are now abolished.—We are taught by our blessed Redeemer, to look upon all men, even our enemies, as neighbors and brethren, and to do unto them as we would they should do unto us.

Under a dispensation so admirably adapted to promote the temporal as well as the eternal happiness of mankind, that any should deviate so far from its principles, as to encourage a practice so replete with iniquity, and in particular that this nation, generally characterized by its attachment to civil and religious liberty, should have contributed, perhaps, more than any other, to the establishment and continuance of slavery, is a most painful reflection. It would surely have been more consistent with the avowed principles of Englishmen, both as men and as Christians, if their settlement in heathen countries had been succeeded by mild and benevolent attempts to civilize their inhabitants, and to incline them to receive the glad tidings of the gospel. But how different a conduct, towards them, has been pursued! it has not only been repugnant, in a political view, to those commercial advantages which a fair and honorable treatment might have procured, but has evidently tended to increase the barbarity of their manners, and to excite in their minds an aversion to that religion, the professors whereof so cruelly treat them.

This traffic is the principal source of the destructive wars which prevail among these unhappy people, and it is attended with consequences, the mere recital of which is shocking to humanity. The violent separation of the dearest relatives, the tears of conjugal and parental affection, the reluctance of the slaves to a voyage from which they can have no prospect of returning, must present scenes of distress which would pierce the heart of any, in whom the principles of humanity are not wholly effaced. This, however, is but the beginning of sorrows with the poor captives. Under their cruel treatment on shipboard, where, without regard to health or decency, hundreds are confined within the narrow limits of the hold, numbers perish; and, by what is called the seasoning in the islands, many are relieved by a premature death, from that series of accumulated sufferings which awaits their less happy survivors. The measure of their afflictions yet remains to be filled; being sold to the highest bidder, and branded with a hot iron, they have yet to linger on, unpitied, the whole term of their miserable existence, in excessive labor, and too often under the merciless control of unprincipled and unfeeling men, without proper food or clothing, or any encouragement to sweeten their toil; whilst every fault, real, or imaginary, is punished with a rigor which is but weakly restrained by the colony laws; instances of the greatest enormity, even the most wanton or deliberate murder of the slaves, being only punished, if punished at all, by trifling pecuniary fines.

But a bare enumeration of the calamities of this wretched people, would exceed the limits proposed to this short address: We think it not improper, however, to give the following extract from a late author, who was an eye witness of the miseries of this persecuted race.

Our religious society in these kingdoms, and in North America, have for many years tenderly sympathized with this unhappy people, under their complicated sufferings, and have endeavored to procure them relief: Nor has their case been without other advocates; whose numbers we have with much satisfaction observed to increase. The expectation of many, who are anxiously concerned for the suppression of this national evil, is now, under Providence, fixed upon the wise and human interposition of the legislature to whom, with dutiful submission, we earnestly recommend the serious consideration of this important subject; with a pleasing hope, that the result will be, a prohibition of this traffic in future and an extension of such relief to those who already groan in bondage, as justice and mercy may dictate, and their particular situations may admit. That so the blessings of those who are ready to perish may rest upon you, and this nation may no longer, on their account, remain obnoxious to the righteous judgments of the Lord, who, in the most awful manner, declared by his prophet,

and who likewise pronounced a

NOTES ON THE SLAVE TRADE.

IT may not be necessary to repeat what has been so fully declared in several modern publications, of the inconsistence of slavery with every right of mankind, with every feeling of humanity, and every precept of Christianity; nor to point out its inconsistency with the welfare, peace and prosperity of every country, in proportion as it prevails; what grievous sufferings it brings on the poor NEGROES; but more especially what a train of fatal vices it produces in their lordly oppressors and their unhappy offspring. Nevertheless for the sake of some who have not met with, or fully considered those former publications, and in hopes that some who are still active in support of slavery may be induced to consider their ways, and become more wise, the following substance of an address or expostulation made by a sensible Author, to the several ranks of persons most immediately concerned in the trade, is now republished.

"And first, to the Captains employed in this trade. Most of you know the country of Guinea, perhaps now by your means, part of it is become a dreary uncultivated wilderness; the inhabitants being murdered or carried away, so that there are few left to till the ground; but you know, or have heard, how populous, how fruitful, how pleasant it was a few years ago. You know the people were not stupid, not wanting in sense, considering the few means of improvement they enjoyed. Neither did you find them savage, treacherous, or unkind to strangers. On the contrary they were in most parts a sensible and ingenious people; kind and friendly, and generally just in their dealings. Such are the men whom you hire their own countrymen to tear away from this lovely country; part by stealth, part by force, part made captives in those wars which you raise or foment on purpose. You have seen them torn away, children from their parents, parents from their children: Husbands from their wives, wives from their beloved husbands; brethren and sisters from each other. You have dragged them who had never done you any wrong, perhaps in chains, from their native shore. You have forced them into your ships, like an herd of swine, them who had souls immortal as your own. You have stowed them together as close as ever they could lie, without any regard to decency or conveniency—And when many of them had been poisoned by soul air, or had sunk under various hardships,

You have carried the survivors into the vilest slavery, never to end but with life: Such slavery as is not found among the Turks at Algiers, no, nor among the heathens in America.

May I speak plainly to you? I must. Love constrains me: Love to you, as well, as those you are concerned with. Is there a God? You know there is. Is he a just God? Then there must be a state of retribution: A state wherein the just God will reward every man according to his work. Then what reward will he render to you. O think betimes! before you drop into eternity: Think how,

Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breast, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures. Was you a stone or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relentings? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal with you, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands. And at that day it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you: But if your heart does relent; though' in a small degree, know it: is a call from the God of Love. And to-day, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart—To day resolve, God being your helper to escape for your life—Regard not money: All that a man hath will he give for his life. Whatever you lose, lose not your soul; nothing can countervail that lose. Immediately quit the horrid trade: At all events be an honest man.

This equally concerns every merchant who is engaged in the slave-trade. It is you that induce the African villain to sell his countrymen; and in order thereto, to steal, rob, murder men, women and children without number: by enabling the English villain to pay him for so doing; whom you over pay for his execrable labor. It is your money, that is the spring of all, that improwers him to go on, so that whatever he or the African does in this matter, is all your act and deed. And is your conscience quite reconciled to this? Does it never reproach you at all? Has gold entirely blinded your eyes and stupefied your heart? Can you see, can you feel no harm therein? Is it doing as you would be done to? Make the case your own.

His answer was worthy of a man: O let his resolution be yours! Have no more any part in this detestable business. Instantly leave it to those unfeeling wretches,

And this equally concerns every person who has an estate in our American plantations: Yea all slave-holders of whatever rank and degree; seeing men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers. Indeed you say,

Nay but you are: You are deeply concerned, to know that they are not stolen: Otherwise you are partaker with a thief, and are not a jot honester than him. But you know they are not honestly come by: You know they are procured by means nothing near so innocent as picking of pockets, house breaking, or robbery upon the highway. You know they are procured by a deliberate series of more complicated villainy (of fraud, robbery and murder) than was ever practiced either by Mohammedans or Pagans; in particular by murders of all kinds; by the blood of the innocent poured upon the ground like water. Now it is your money that pays the merchant, and thro' him the captain and African butchers. You therefore are guilty: Yea principally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies, and murders. You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion; they would not stir a flep without you—Therefore the blood of all these wretches, who die before their time, whether in their country or elsewhere, lies upon your head. The blood of thy brother, (for whether thou wilt believe it or no, such he is in the sight of him that made him) crieth against thee from the earth, from the ship and from the waters. O! whatever it cost, put a stop to its cry, before it be too late. Instantly, at any price, were it the half of thy goods, deliver thyself from blood guiltiness! Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy house, thy land, are at present stained with blood. Surely it is enough; accumulate no more guilt: Spill no more the blood of the innocent! Do not hire another to shed blood! Do not pay him for doing it! Whether thou art a Christian or no, show thyself a man; be not more savage than a lion or a bear.

Perhaps thou wilt say,

But is it enough to satisfy your own conscience! Had your father, have you, has any man living, a right to use another as a Slave? It cannot be, even setting REVELATION aside. It cannot be, that either war, or contract, can give any man such a property in another as he has in his sheep and oxen: Much less is it possible, that any child of man, should ever be born a Slave. Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon as he breathes the vital air. And no human law can deprive him of that right, which he derives from the law of nature. If therefore you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of mercy, nor of the revealed law of GOD) render unto all their due. Give Liberty to whom Liberty is due, that is to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature. Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice, away with whips, chains, and all compulsion. Be gentle towards all men. And see that you invariably do unto everyone, as you would he should do unto you.