"Now We, The Society In England Aforesaid, Address Your Majesty For The
Succour And Protection Of This Cruelly Oppressed Portion
Of the human
race, and in order that you may be graciously pleased to remove the
chain of bondage from
Off these unfortunate victims of the violence and
cupidity of wicked men, who, in defiance of all justice and mercy, claim
them as their property, and buy and sell them as cattle.
"We further entreat that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to
place the slaves in your Imperial dominions upon a footing of equality
with the rest of your faithful subjects, and to make them free men,
having the rightful possession of their own persons, and being at
liberty to travel whithersoever they will.
"For your Majesty rightly understands and knows as well as we do, that
God the Almighty Maker of us and you, has made all men equal, and has
not permitted man to have property in his fellow man, which reduces them
to the level of brutes; therefore, to make slaves of our fellows, our
brothers and sisters, is to sin against the will and mind of God, and to
provoke his wrath and indignation against us, and against our children
after us.
"Consequently, we, the Society in England, aforesaid, in common with
some of your own Mussulman sovereigns and people, hold Slavery, and the
Slave Trade in extreme abhorrence, because it kills and destroys our
brothers whom we ought to love and cherish, because it makes them like
brutes, whom we ought to esteem as reasonable beings, because it hardens
our own hearts and makes us cruel towards our fellows, whom we ought to
treat with kindness and compassion, and because it deforms God's
creatures, in whom we ought to revere his spiritual likeness, man being
made after the likeness of God, in possessing a spiritual reasoning
soul; these evils, however, are the direct and inevitable consequences
of the accursed Slave Trade, and for such reasons we, the people of
England in general, abhor it, and seek, in every legitimate and
righteous way, to persuade men of every nation in the world to abandon
this inhuman and wicked traffic.
"Finally, we implore your Majesty to be pleased to follow out that great
act of confidence which you have exercised towards the negro race, in
appointing them the life-guards of your Imperial person, by graciously
liberating them from the cruel yoke of slavery. From our hearts we
believe that your Majesty will find such a spontaneous act of compassion
towards the desolate African Slaves to be the wisest worldly policy, and
most agreeable to the will of the Eternal Creator of us all. Your loyal
subjects will love the goodness of your heart the more, and serve you
the better, while all Africa, of which the immense dominions of your
Majesty form so large a part, will catch new life and vigour, under the
blessing of the Almighty, and grow happy and prosperous in the ages to
come.
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