Who create and support this demand? The consumers of slave produce.
What then are slave masters? Merely mercenaries, who when tempted or hired by the consumer, conduct or do the dreadful work, which must be done, before the consumer, the tempter, can be gratified.
Is it not, I would solemnly say to every reader of these lines, as criminal to hire or support slavery, as it is directly to perpetrate it? Or, if the slave master be found guilty at the judgment seat, can they escape, who voluntarily give him the sole motive for becoming or continuing a slave master? Consumers of slave produce, look well to it. You will want a good answer at the bar of God! And remember, that to darken truth, or to render duty obscure, by excuses which art can frame, or which corruption admits, is eternally a different thing from any thing that God can approve of.
SECTION IV.
On 2d of April, 1792, Mr. Wilberforce moved "that the trade carried on by British subjects, for the purpose of obtaining slaves on the coast of Africa, ought to be abolished." The discussion which ensued, was deeply interesting, and some progress was made. Mr. H. Thornton, chairman of the Sierra Leone company, said in the course of it, speaking of the slave trade, "It had obtained the name of a trade, and many had been deceived by the appellation: but it was a war, not a trade; it was a mass of crimes, and not commerce; it alone prevented the introduction of trade into Africa. * * * * It created more embarrassments than all the natural impediments of the country, and was more hard to contend with, than any difficulties of climate, soil, or natural dispositions of the people." Such is still the case; and such must continue to be the case, until slavery, its sole parent and support, is abolished.
