tem of falfhood and cruelty, notwithstanding their high pretenfions to morality and fuperior virtue! for there is "no bafenefs of mind" so despicably inhuman and immoral as that which prompts men to become advocates for Slavery in any of its branches! because it is a MAXIM or PRINCIPLE of the

firft foundation of our law-" Wicked

and cruel must that man necessarily be "deemed, who does not favour Liberty." -"Impius et crudelis neceffariè judi"candus eft qui libertati non favet." (Co. Lit. 124 from Judge Fortefcue's Tract, "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ.") And therefore when we compare this MAXIM of our Common Law with the vain affertions which I have cited from both English and Indian Bramins, and confider that their purpose and intention must have been grofsly inimical to a very great part of mankind, viz. to defraud and rob them even of the common rights and dignity of human nature, in order to justify the enflaving and treating them as brute beasts, it must be allowed that there never were greater b 2 inftances

instances of “brutality," or more manifeft tokens of a want of" moral fenfations" than what these proud afferters themfelves have fhewn us in their own wicked attempts to enslave both the African Negroes and Indian Sooders! This is too truly "a mark which diftinguishes them from the man who "feels," (as the Advocate for Slavery fays of the Negro) and therefore how, even according to his own principles, fhall we diftinguish fuch writers as himfelf" from the highest fpecies of brutes?" By their shape? By their specch? or in their "perception by fimple ideas?" Yet furely neither by their humane feelings nor their "moral fenfations!" for in these respects their humanity is plainly defi cient! I have dwelt the longer on these unreasonable Braminical notions in order to demonftrate to the African and Indian ftrangers of the new community, the high importance of the English Com mon Law, by which the most inimical doctrines to human happinefs may be fo eafily confuted, though we have not yet advanced beyond the firft foundation of

it. But thefe interefting proofs against oppreffion are infinitely ftrengthened and confirmed by the fecend foundation of our common Law, viz. Revealed Religion: by which I mean, the further and more explicit information of the glorious Being, Will, and Attributes, of the "Lord of all," which hath been delivered to mankind, from time to time, in those facred writings or fcriptures which are called the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, or more commonly the Bible, or Book, eminently fo called, though confifting of many books. Thefe, alfo, contain a great abundance of excellent MAXIMS of justice and right, or neceflary conclufions of natural reafon, which (by being, in themselves, clearly and unquestionably just and right, or felf evident in natural law) might feem rather to belong to the first foundation of law; but this only proves the near connection of the two first foundations, and that they are both equally to be deemed the Divine Law, or Will of God, for. the

4

the regulation both of civil and religious polity.

Though all mankind have certainly an equal right to claim the "great and precious promifes" tendered in those written laws to every individual, without exception, who fhall fincerely endeavour to fulfil the conditions of them; yet black men, and all people of colour, have an especial and peculiar temporal intereft in adopting, afferting, and maintaining, against all oppofers, to the utmost of their power, the validity and divine authority of this fecond foundation of our civil and religious polity,the Bible; because it is, in an especial manner to them, the Great Charter even of their temporal privileges: being the authentic record of their equal defcent in blood from the one common Parent of mankind; whereby the justice of their claim to an EQUAL DIGNITY WITH THE WHITES, and to all the rights, mutual confideration, and brotherly respect of their fellow men, with

out

out diftinction, is most unquestionably demonftrated. For by this fecond foundation of law, we know that GoD "made the world and all things therein” "that he giveth to all life, and breath, "and all things; and hath made of ONE "BLOOD ALL NATIONS OF MEN, for "to dwell on all the face of the earth, "and hath determined the times before "appointed, and the bounds of their

habitation," &c. as declared by the apostle Paul to the Athenian philofophers. (See Acts xvii. 24-26.) And Mofes, long before, circumftantially related the lineal defcent of ALL THE NATION'S from our common parent Noah, though he hath not given the leaft intimation concerning the commencement and caufe of that remarkable difference in colour or complexion which distinguishes the various nations descended from the one common stock: and we may be affured, therefore, that the knowledge of thefe points is not neceffary for us, and that it would not have anfwered any good purpose had the commencement and the occafion of

fo