In tracing the different streams from whence the torrent arose, which has now happily swept away the Slave Trade, I must begin with an inquiry as to those who favoured the cause of the injured Africans, from the year 1516, to the year 1787, at which latter period, a number of persons associated themselves, in England, for its abolition. For though they, who belonged to this association, may, in consequence of having pursued a regular system, be called the principal actors, yet it must be acknowledged, that their efforts would never have been so effectual, if the minds of men had not been prepared by others, who had moved before them. Great events have never taken place without previously disposing causes. So it is in the case before us. Hence they, who lived even in early times, and favoured this great cause, may be said to have been necessary precursors in it. And here it may be proper to observe, that it is by no means necessary that all these should have been themselves actors in the production of this great event. Persons have contributed towards it in different ways: — Some have written expressly on the subject, who have had no opportunity of promoting it by personal exertions. Others have only mentioned it incidentally in their writings. Others, in an elevated rank and station, have cried out publicly concerning it, whose sayings have been recorded. All these, however, may be considered as necessary forerunners in their day; for all of them have brought the subject more or less into notice. They have more or less enlightened the mind upon it; they have more or less impressed it; and therefore each may be said to have had his share in diffusing and keeping up a certain portion of knowledge and feeling concerning it, which has been eminently useful in the promotion of the cause.
It is rather remarkable, that the first forerunners and coadjutors should have been men in power.
So early as in the year 1503, a few slaves had been sent from the Portuguese settlements in Africa into the Spanish colonies in America. In 1511, Ferdinand the Fifth, king of Spain, permitted them to be carried in great numbers. Ferdinand, however, must have been ignorant in these early times of the piratical manner in which the Portuguese had procured them. He could have known nothing of their treatment when in bondage, nor could he have viewed the few uncertain adventurous transportations of them into his dominions in the western world, in the light of a regular trade. After his death, however; a proposal was made by Bartholomew de las Casas, the bishop of Chiapa, to Cardinal Ximenes, who held the reigns of the government of Spain till Charles the Fifth came to the throne, for the establishment of a regular system of commerce in the persons of the native Africans. The object of Bartholomew de las Casas was undoubtedly to save the American Indians, whose cruel treatment and almost extirpation he had witnessed during his residence among them, and in whose behalf he had undertaken a voyage to the court of Spain. It is difficult to reconcile this proposal with the humane and charitable spirit of the bishop of Chiapa. But it is probable he believed that a code of laws would soon be established in favour both of Africans and of the natives in the Spanish settlements, and that he flattered himself that, being about to return and to live in the country of their slavery, he could look to the execution of it. The cardinal, however, with a foresight, a benevolence, and a justice which will always do honour to his memory, refused the proposal, not only judging it to be unlawful to consign innocent people to slavery at all, but to be very inconsistent to deliver the inhabitants of one country from a state of misery by consigning to it those of another. Ximenes, therefore, may be considered as one of the first great friends of the Africans after the partial beginning of the trade.
This answer of the cardinal, as it showed his virtue as an individual, so was it peculiarly honourable to him as a public man, and ought to operate as a lesson to other statesmen, how they admit any thing new among political regulations and establishments, which is connected in the smallest degree with injustice; for evil, when once sanctioned by governments, spreads in a tenfold degree, and may, unless seasonably checked, become so ramified as to effect the reputation of a country, and to render its own removal scarcely possible without detriment to the political concerns of the state. In no instance has this been verified more than in the case of the Slave Trade. Never was our national character more tarnished, and our prosperity more clouded by guilt. Never was there a monster more difficult to subdue. Even they, who heard as it were the shrieks of oppression, and wished to assist the sufferers, were fearful of joining in their behalf. While they acknowledged the necessity of removing one evil, they were terrified by the prospect of introducing another; and were, therefore, only able to relieve their feelings by, lamenting, in the bitterness of their hearts, that this traffic had ever been begun at all.
After the death of Cardinal Ximenes, the emperor Charles the Fifth, who had come into power, encouraged the Slave Trade. In 1517, he granted a patent to one of his Flemish favourites, containing an exclusive right of importing four thousand Africans into America. But he lived long enough to repent of what he had thus inconsiderately done; for in the year 1542, he made a code of laws for the better protection of the unfortunate Indians in his foreign dominions, and he stopped the progress of African slavery by an order that all slaves in his American islands should he made free. This order was executed by Pedro de la Gasca. Manumission took place as well in Hispaniola as on the Continent; but on the return of Gasca to Spain, and the retirement of Charles into a monastery, slavery was revived.
It is impossible to pass over this instance of the abolition of slavery by Charles, in all his foreign dominions, without some comments. It shows him, first, to have been a friend both to the Indians and the Africans, as a part of the human race; it shows he was ignorant of what he was doing when he gave his sanction to this cruel trade; it shows when legislators give one set of men undue power over another, how quickly they abuse it, or he never would have found himself obliged, in the short space of twenty-five years, to undo that which he had countenanced as a great state measure; and while it confirms the former lesson to statesmen of watching the beginnings or principles of things in their political movements, it should teach them never to persist in the support of evils, through the false shame of being obliged to confess that they had once given them their sanction, nor to delay the cure of them because, politically speaking, neither this nor that is the proper season; but to do them away instantly, as there can only be one fit or proper time in the eye of religion, namely, on the conviction of their existence.
From the opinions of Cardinal Ximenes and of the emperor Charles the Fifth, I hasten to that which was expressed much about the same time, in a public capacity, by Pope Leo the Tenth. The Dominicans in Spanish America, witnessing the cruel treatment which the slaves underwent there, considered slavery as utterly repugnant to the principles of the gospel, and recommended the abolition of it. The Franciscans did not favour the former in this their scheme of benevolence; and the consequence was, that a controversy on this subject sprung up between them, which was carried to this pope for his decision. Leo exerted himself, much to his honour, in behalf of the poor sufferers, and