longer a dungeon in her hold. He was free to exercise his industry, and secure in the fruits of his toil. His wife was his wife, and his children his children, and no longer the property of a tyrant—and no more went up the cry of his wrongs and of his blood to God against the land.
It is true indeed, that for a considerable time after this, the country was disgraced at times, by ignorant or lawless men; as for instance, in 1779 the following advertisement was made at Liverpool, on 15th October; "To be sold by auction, at George Dunbar's office, on Thursday next, the 21st inst., at one o'clock, a black boy, about fourteen years old," &c. But these were merely as the last lashings of the wave, when the storm recedes from the shore. They have long ceased.[1]
SECTION III.
ON 22d June, 1772, the day on which it was judged in Sergeant Davy's words, by Lord Mansfield's decision, that "as soon as any slave, sets his foot on English ground, he becomes free," Granville Sharp received a letter from Anthony Benezet, and for several years after kept up a correspondence with him on the most important subjects of humanity and of practical religion. Benezet, in his first letter, dated Philadelphia, 14th of 5th month, (May) 1772, urges Sharp to attack the African slave trade, and speaks of the disposition of thousands in Maryland and Virginia, to support him with petitions. "The people of New England," he says, "have made a law, that nearly amounts to a prohibition of the trade, and I am informed, have proposed to the Governor and Council, that all negroes born in the country, should be free at a certain age. I know the flood of impiety and selfishness, which as a torrent seems
- ↑ Note, see Appendix, No. I., for some of the principles of eternal and British Law, on which Granville Sharp proceeded.
