[An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African by Thomas Clarkson]@TWC D-Link book
An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African

PART II
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2.
Decem millia talentum argenti descripta pensionibus aequis in annos quinquaginta solverent.Ibid.3.Et naves rostratas, praeter decem triremes, traderent, elephantosque, quos haberent domitos; neque domarent alios; Bellum neve in Africa, neve extra Africam, injussu P.R.
gererent, &c.

Ibid.] * * * * * CHAP.

VIII.
We shall beg leave, before we proceed to the arguments of the _purchasers_, to add the following observations to the substance of the three preceding chapters.
As the two orders of men, of those who are privately kidnapped by individuals, and of those who are publickly seized by virtue of the authority of their prince, compose together, at least[048], nine tenths of the African slaves, they cannot contain, upon a moderate computation, less than ninety thousand men annually transported: an immense number, but easily to be credited, when we reflect that thousands are employed for the purpose of stealing the unwary, and that these diabolical practices are in force, so far has European _injustice_ been spread, at the distance of a thousand miles from the factories on the coast.

The _slave merchants_, among whom a quantity of European goods is previously divided, travel into the heart of the country to this amazing distance.

Some of them attend the various markets, that are established through so large an extent of territory, to purchase the kidnapped people, whom the _slave-hunters_ are continually bringing in; while the rest, subdividing their merchandize among the petty sovereigns with whom they deal, receive, by an immediate exertion of fraud and violence, the stipulated number.
Now, will any man assert, in opposition to the arguments before advanced, that out of this immense body of men, thus annually collected and transported, there is even _one_, over whom the original or subsequent seller can have any power or right?
Whoever asserts this, in the first instance, must, contradict his own feelings, and must consider _himself_ as a just object of prey, whenever any daring invader shall think it proper to attack _him_.


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