Thoughts upon Slavery by John Wesley - HTML preview

V.

1. It remains only to make a little application of the preceding observations.—But to whom should that application be made? That may bear a question. Should we address ourselves to the public at large? What effect can this have? It may inflame the world against the guilty, but is not likely to remove that guilt. Should we appeal to the English nation in general? This also is striking wide; and is never likely to procure any redress for the sore evil we complain of.—As little would it in all probability avail, to apply to the Parliament. So many things, which seem of greater importance lie before them that they are not likely to attend to this. I therefore add a few words to those who are more immediately concerned, whether captains, merchants or planters.

2. And, first, to the captains employed in this trade. Most of you know, the country of Guinea: several parts of it at least, between the river Senegal and the kingdom of Angola. Perhaps now, by your means, part of it is become a dreary uncultivated wilderness, the inhabitants being all murdered or carried away, so that there are none left to till the ground. But you well know, 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, fierce, cruel, treacherous, or unkind to strangers. On the contrary, they were in most parts, a sensible and ingenious people. They were kind and friendly, courteous and obliging, and remarkably fair and 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 captive 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: (only some of them, leaped into the sea, and resolutely stayed under water, till they could suffer no more from you.) You have stowed them together as close as ever they could lie, without any regard either to decency or convenience. And when many of them had been poisoned by foul air, or had sunk under various hardships, you have seen their remains delivered to the deep, till the sea should give up its dead. 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.

3. May I speak plainly to you? I must. Love constrains me: love to you, as well as to 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 works. Then what reward will he render to you? O think betimes! Before you drop into eternity! Think now, He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy. 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 flourishing eyes, the heaving breasts, 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 relenting? 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 will 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 loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade: at all events, be an honest man.

4. 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 labour. It is your money, that is the spring of all, that impowers 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 stupified 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. “Master,” said a Slave at Liverpool (to the Merchant that owned him) “what if some of my countrymen were to come here, and take away my mistress, and master Tommy and master Billy and carry them into our country, and make them slaves, how would you like it?” His answer was worthy of a man: “I will never buy a slave more while I live.” O let his resolution be your’s! Have no more any part in this detestable business. Instantly leave it to those unfeeling wretches, “Who laugh at human nature and compassion!” Be you a man! Not a wolf, a devourer of the human species! Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy!

5. And this equally concerns every gentleman that 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, “I pay honestly for my goods: and I am not concerned to know how they are come by”: nay but you are: you are deeply concerned to know they are honestly come by. 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 pockets, house-breaking, or robbery upon the high-way. You know they are procured by a deliberate series of more complicated villany, (of fraud, robbery and murder) than was ever practised either by Mahometans 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 through him the Captain, and the 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 step without you: therefore the blood of all these wretches, who die before their time, whether in the 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 costs, put a stop to its cry before it be too late: instantly, at any price, were it the half of your goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness! Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy house, thy lands 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 you are a Christian or no, shew yourself a man! Be not more savage than a lion or a bear!

6. Perhaps you will say, “I do not buy any Negroes: I only use those left by my father.” So far is well: 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 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 all whips, all chains, all compulsion! Be gentle toward all men, and see that you invariably do unto every one, as you would he should do unto you.

7. O thou God of love, thou who art loving to every man, and whose mercy is over all thy works; thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and who art rich in mercy unto all; thou who has mingled of one blood, all the nations upon the earth; have compassion upon these outcasts of men, who are trodden down as dung upon the earth! Arise and help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt upon the ground like water! Are not these also the work of thine own hands, the purchase of thy Son’s blood? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land of their captivity; and let their complaint come up before thee; let it enter into thy ears! Make even those that lead them away captive to pity them, and turn their captivity as the rivers in the South. O burst thou all their chains in sunder; more especially the chains of their sins: Thou, Saviour of all, make them free, that they may be free indeed!

The servile progeny of Ham

Seize as the purchase of thy blood!

Let all the Heathens know thy name,

From Idols to the living God;

The dark Americans convert,

And shine in every Pagan heart.

FINIS