or as if, there were no distinction between good and evil, but as the circumstances of persons, or occasions, might render it expedient or necessary to practice the one or the other. Thus the tyrant's plea of necessity, is made to remove every boundary of law, morality and common right. But 'woe to them that call evil good, and good evil.' Happy would it be for this nation, and for the souls of such as mislead it, if the feelings of the seamen and other laborious poor, had no other stimulant than the recital of their unhappy case by such poor advocates as I. Are they not surely of the same blood, and have they not the same natural knowledge of good and evil, to discern? and the same sensibility to injuries, as those who cause their sufferings?
"It is to prevent and dissuade from acts of violence and injustice, and surely not to aggravate the sense of them, that such circumstances are noticed. Nay, it is charity towards the oppressors as well as the oppressed, to endeavor to convince the oppressors of their error—and how can this be done but by exhibiting the oppressions. It is a crime to be silent on such occasions; for the scriptures command, 'open thy mouth—judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy.' Prov. xxxi. 9. Nay, it is the cause of God himself, who has declared, 'for the oppressor of the poor reproacheth his Maker; but he that honoreth him, hath mercy on the poor.' " Prov. xiv. 31.
During all this time, Granville Sharp continued his correspondence on the subject of slavery and the slave trade. He particularly urged the Bench of Bishops, and visited most of them personally. A few cordially met his views.[1] In a letter to the Archbishop of York, he says:
"The Methodists also are highly offended at the scandalous toleration of slavery in our Colonies, if I may judge by the sentiments of one of their principal teachers, Mr. Wesley: though indeed I have never had any communication with that gentleman, but on this particular point.
- ↑ These were particulaly (1779) the Archbishop of Canterbery. Bishops of Litchfield, St. David's, St. Asaph, London, Ely, Bangor, Oxford and Peterborough.
