feeling of pity toward the Indians, whom the Spaniards were enslaving, proposed to Ximenes the regular importation of negroes. Whether this be true or not, Charles the V. in 1517, granted the privilege to Lebresa, of importing 4000 slaves to America annually. Lebresa sold his right to import to Genoese merchants, for about $25,000. These merchants now commenced the slave trade in earnest.

Sir John Hawkins has the honor of being the first English captain who engaged in the business of stealing negroes. In 1556 he made an unsuccessful effort at negro catching near Cape Verd. He made another effort at a different point; and after burning the towns, was so bravely resisted by the inhabitants, that he lost seven men, and only captured ten. He continued his depredations until his ship was loaded with human beings, which he sold in America.[1] The trade was now vigorously prosecuted by the christian nations of Europe. It is said that Charles the V., Louis XIII. and Queen Elizabeth had some trouble with their consciences about this horrible trade, but they were quieted by the argument that it brought the African into a good situation to be converted! Pope Leo X. declared that “not only the christian religion but nature itself cried out against a State of slavery.”

These feeble expressions of disapprobation were scarcely heard and the trade went on vigorously—cupidity triumphing over conscience and silencing almost, for many years, the voice of humanity and religion.

An extract from a sermon preached on the slave trade by President Edwards, in the year 1791 will now be quoted. At the time this good man lifted his voice against this traffic, it will be remembered that it was authorized by the Constitution of the United States, and was a source of great profit to those engaged in it.

“The slave trade is wicked and abominable on account of the cruel manner in which it is carried on. Beside the stealing or kidnapping of men, women and children, in the first instance, and the instigation of others to this abominable practice, the inhuman manner in which they are transported to America, and in which they are treated on the passage and in their subsequent slavery, is such as ought forever to deter every man from acting any part in this business, who has any regard to justice or humanity. They are crowded so closely into the holds and between the decks of vessels, that they have room scarcely to lie down, and some times not room to sit up in an erect posture, the men at the same time fastened together with irons, by two and two: and all this in the most sultry climate. The consequence of the whole is, that the most dangerous and fatal diseases are soon bred among them, whereby vast numbers of those exported from Africa perish in the voyage; others in dread of that slavery which is before them, and in distress and despair from the loss of their parents, their children, their husbands, their wives, all their dear connections, and their dear native country itself, starve themselves to death, or plunge themselves into the ocean. Those who attempt in the former of those ways to escape from their persecutors, are tortured by live coals placed to their mouths. Those who attempt an escape in the latter and fail, are equally tortured by the most cruel beating. If any of them make an attempt as they sometimes do, to recover their liberty, some, and as the circumstance may be, many, are put to immediate death, others, beaten, bruised, cut and mangled in a most inhuman and shocking manner, are in this situation, exhibited to the rest, to terrify them from the like attempt in future: and some are delivered up to every species of torment, whether by the application of the whip, or of any other instrument, even of fire itself, as the ingenuity of the ship master, or of his crew is able to suggest, or their situation will admit; and these torments are purposely continued for several days before death is permitted to afford relief to these objects of vengeance.

“By these means, according to the common computation, twenty-five thousand, which is a fourth part of those who are exported from Africa, and by the concession of all, twenty thousand, annually perish, before they arrive at the places of their destination in America.”

The same writer computed that of the one hundred thousand slaves annually exported, 60,000 were captives taken in war, and that ten persons were killed in the capture of one. Sixty thousand then in the time of Jonathan Edwards were slain in battle, 40,000 destroyed on the voyage and in the seasoning, making an annual destruction of 100,000 men, woman and children, in order to procure 60,000 slaves! This computation may be relied upon, as Jonathan Edwards was a careful writer, and no enthusiast.

For three hundred years this horrible traffic had been prosecuted before Mr. Edwards delivered the sermon from which we have quoted, and at that period the annual slaughter was 100,000, and the annual enslavement 60,000! How many perished during those three hundred years God only knows. Rum had excited wars among the natives, and the whole coast, and far into the interior was turned into a battle field. No one was safe. The poor African could not lie down securely at night, for men-stealers were ransacking the country watching for their prey like hungry tigers; villages were burned, property destroyed, and the wretched inhabitants, either captured, killed, or caused to fly from their homes, and perish perhaps with famine.

In a report made to the British House of Commons, it was estimated that from 1807 to 1847, including a period of only forty years, ten millions of persons had been made the victims of this traffic! Ten millions; one-half of whom were murdered in Africa; one fourth during the “middle passage;” and the remaining fourth reduced to property and doomed, with their posterity, to a life of degradation, suffering and toil! And all this gigantic robbery and murder perpetrated in the favored nineteenth century!

Permit me to direct your attention to a single slave ship which sailed only a few years ago. This ship was examined by the officers of a British man-of-war. The following is from the pen of Mr. Walsh, an eye witness of what he relates.

“The ship had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out 17 days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty five!

“The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other’s legs, and they were stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of their lying down, or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep, with the owner’s marks of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference, quiemados pelo ferro quento—burnt with the red hot iron. Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship; and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it. As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived something of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to,