Indeed, among the Jews, the number of slaves must have been small. They were numerous in a narrow territory, and were in general husband-men, and used ploughs and other instruments of agriculture, and wrought in the field with their servants. Ziba, who appears to have been steward to the house of Saul, had only twenty servants to assist him and his sons in cultivating the lands belonging to the family. The Jews on their return from captivity had only one servant to six persons, or one in each family. The remnant of the Gibeonites, who served the temple, was then 392. It is not therefore fair to consider every accidental possession of a servant, either as an instance, or as a vindication of the Leverpool “slave trade;” of which no ancient nation could ever form an idea. We may rather conclude, that though the Jews were permitted to buy slaves from the Heathen, they did not traffick in them; and forcibly to enslave their brethren was death. (See Exod. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv. 7.)
Of Mr. Harris’s data as general propositions, I shall say little more; the application alone is what the present subject is concerned in. I shall only suggest an additional datum, as necessary to complete his principles of reasoning.
Dat. 13. If the slave trade, though “intrinsically licit,” cannot now be carried on, without breaking through every human and divine law, without cheating, violence, oppression, murder, then must it be laid aside, till we shall have discovered a way of carrying it on, agreeably to the doctrines of the gospel, by which we are enjoined to consider all men as our brethren, and to deal by them as we wish them to deal by us.
Page 16. Speaking of Abraham’s possessing of servants, he calls it, “a positive approbation, a sanction of divine authority in favour of the slave-trade.” What a change is put on the Reader! Abraham possessed servants; therefore the Leverpool slave-trade has a divine sanction. For if this be not meant, nothing is meant. His book is published to vindicate this trade; it is dedicated to the corporation, who must so understand it. Now let a man only read Mr. Newton or Mr. Falconbridge’s, or any other eye-witness’s account of this trade, and what horrid impiety must of necessity be understood! Is there “a divine sanction” for all the iniquity accompanying this very diabolical business, the kidnapping, chaining, murdering, suffocating of millions of unhappy fellow creatures? Are such things not barely permitted, but (p. 42.) approved, encouraged, and seemingly enjoined?
Abraham was a rich, powerful, prince. As he travelled through various countries, numbers must have been desirous of attaching themselves to his fortune, and have offered themselves for his attendants. His humanity might have induced him to purchase children from unnatural parents, or captives from robbers. But all in his family were in a situation very different from that of West Indian slaves. We learn, that on the supposition of his dying childless, he intended one of them for his heir; that he intrusted a servant to chuse a wife for his son Isaac; that he put arms in his servants hands, and led them out to battle. There is nothing of West Indian slavery in all this.
But a particular stress is laid on the story of Hagar, and Sarah’s ill treatment of her. Page 19. “She obtained no favourable sentence from the Divine Tribunal for leaving her mistress, nor was Sarah censured for her severity.” Sarah was not present when the angel appeared unto Hagar, therefore she is neither praised nor condemned. But that Hagar believed she had a favourable sentence, and that her conduct was not condemned, when assured that the Lord had seen her affliction, which is the scripture phrase for deliverance (Gen. xxix. 32. and xxxi. 42. Exod. iii. 7.), and that she should have a son, and that her seed should be multiplied, appears from her acknowledgment of the vision, and returning to her mistress. Nor can we imagine in what more flattering manner her affliction could have been recompensed, or how she could have been afflicted so as to have deserved a recompence, and her mistress not to have been in fault. It was necessary for her to return to her mistress, that her son might partake of the sign of the covenant, and be instructed in the true religion.
Hagar’s case (p. 19.) is compared with an African female slave in the West Indies. Nothing can be more opposite. Josephus says, Pharaoh made Abraham a present of money; and the scriptures say, that he intreated Abraham well for Sarah’s sake, adding immediately, he had cattle, and men servants, and maid servants, as if Pharaoh had presented them; among whom Hagar might have been one; or, as it appears she was a worshipper of the true God, she might voluntarily have entered into Sarah’s service. Certainly she had never been cooped up in a Guinea trader, nor set to plant the sugar-cane; nor was she ordered to return and submit herself for her mistress’s profit, but for her own and her son’s sake; and when that purpose was answered she was dismissed.
There is therefore no foundation for the author’s deduction, p. 20. that “a divine voice declares her to be her master’s indisputable property, and the original bargain to be just and lawful in its nature; and that the (Leverpool) slave-trade, even attended with circumstances not conformable to the feelings of humanity, is essentially confident with the rights of justice, and has the positive sanction of God for its support, however displeasing these circumstances may be to his fatherly providence.” Let any man make sense of this who can. I understand only the extreme boldness of the expression. Here is a right to enslave and an approbation, and also a censure of the exercise of this right. Here our natural notions of benevolence are set in opposition to revelation, p. 42. Revelation commands us to enslave our brethren, even against the suggestions of the feelings of humanity. Surely the writer should shew the high purposes answered by slavery, to gain which it is an act of piety to violate our benevolent feelings.
We come now to the story of Joseph, which, p. 23, “ascertains the inherent lawfulness of the” (Leverpool) “slave-trade.” The first thing that strikes us in his account is, his illustrating his doctrine by Joseph’s political arrangements of the kingdom of Egypt, rather than by Joseph’s own story; which, except in the horrid circumstances of the middle passage, agrees entirely with the Leverpool slave-trade. Joseph is found at a distance from protection. His enemies kidnap him and sell him to slave-brokers, who carry him into Egypt, and dispose of him as an article of commerce to Potiphar. His kidnappers saw, and like Guinea captains disregarded, the anguish of his soul. It is true, afterwards, when they believed themselves in danger of being enslaved in turn, they upbraid each other with their unfeeling cruelty, and charge their distress to its account. But this was only because Scriptural Researches had not then been published: for they, p. 20, would have proved, that “though the action was not altogether conformable to the feelings of humanity, and was even displeasing to his Fatherly Providence; and though doubtless God would see, and of consequence recompense, Joseph for his affliction as he had Hagar; yet this stroke in the slave-trade is essentially consistent with the unalienable rights of justice; has the positive sanction of God in its support, nay, his approbation, p. 16, and p. 42, even his command.”
But let us examine Joseph’s management of the Egyptians, not as this author, but as the scriptures represent it. In the years of plenty Joseph stored the extraordinary produce of each district in the neighbouring cities. One tenth part belonged of right to the king; the rest he purchased at a low price with the king’s treasures. In the years of famine he sold the corn out to the inhabitants of the districts nearest to his respective store-houses at an advanced price, and accumulated the money, cattle, and moveables of the whole kingdom, and at last made a bargain for their lands and persons. It is not to be supposed that any property, except money, was taken out of the original possessors hands; for this would have answered no purpose, but to distress the people and embarrass government. Indeed, where could the whole cattle and moveables of the kingdom have been stored? When the seven years of famine were ended, Pharaoh was the sole proprietor. Joseph then gives the inhabitants a charter, restores them their lands and cattle, on condition of paying to Pharaoh a second tenth of the produce of the land, which made their contributions to the revenue a fifth part of their crops. It appears no other badge or burden of slavery was imposed, except this rent, which was a tenth part more than they had formerly paid.