The common rent of the bare land in England is estimated at one-third of the produce, and the farmer must supply himself with stock, except perhaps buildings, and also contribute largely in a variety of ways to the publick revenues: but by Joseph’s regulation the Egyptian farmer paid only a fifth part for the use of his stock and land, and for the support of government. After having transferred themselves and property to Pharaoh, they could not have been freed on easier terms: and as we often see, that he who hires a farm, grows rich on a possession on which the owner had been ruined, probably the Egyptians became as happy under their new tenure as they had been under their old. In the most unfavourable light, it may be compared with the change that took place at the conquest, when free tenures became feudal, charged with certain services.
Our translation, Gen. xlvii. 20, 21. says, “So the land became Pharaoh’s; and as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof.” In the Septuagint it is, “and the land became Pharaoh’s, and he subjected the people to be servants to him from one end of Egypt to the other.” It is to the same purport in the Samaritan copy. This reads better, and is more probable, than that Joseph should have made the whole nation, as Mr. Harris affirms, change settlements in such a manner as if the people of Kent were sent to the Orkneys, and those of the Orkneys were brought to Kent. This would be such a trifling with peoples lives and feelings, such a waste of property, such a perversion of all experience, and particular knowledge of the agriculture proper in each district, as is only applicable to the Leverpool slave-trade; but cannot, on such slight grounds as this general expression is, be imagined in a man of Joseph’s character, with a pretended view to prevent rebellion. Or the expression in our translation may bear, that the people were distributed so as to be near the respective store-houses, on which their maintenance was assigned.
Therefore “the change made, p. 25, 26, in the happy condition of the Ægyptians, the transportation of 7 or 8 millions of every age, sex, condition, rank; infants, children, decrepit, infirm, delicate, through the scorching sands of a parched up country,” is the mere fiction of imagination, to palliate the still more shocking conduct of the writer’s patrons of Leverpool. The Ægyptians offered themselves for servants, to save themselves from starving. His patrons force the Africans to be slaves, not as he says, from “a state of absolute indigence,” but reduced from plenty and ease to famine, nakedness, and want, by stripes, fetters, cruelty and oppression.
Page 28. It is said, “Joseph, when able to relieve them, took advantage of the extreme indigence of the Ægyptians, to reduce them into the condition of slaves, and in this acted by the immediate direction of God, who made this work to prosper.” Supposing all this true, yet there is nothing common between this transaction and the Leverpool African commerce; but the author’s having given them one common name, “slave-trade.” The Ægyptians, after a fair transfer of themselves and goods, are left in full possession of their lands and property, on paying such a rent as would act as a spur to industry, while it checked that luxury which the author describes, p. 25, as prevailing in Ægypt. The Leverpool slaves are reduced from freedom to a base, helpless, unprofitable, wretched state.
When this writer, p. 27, considers the four-fifths of the produce left with the Ægyptian farmer, as only equivalent to the keep of a West-Indian slave, he must raise a blush on the sugar planter’s cheek; who willingly would leave but one fifth, (the rum) both to support his plantation stock, and maintain his slaves.
But let Joseph’s conduct be what the writer pleases to describe it. He was not the legislator of Ægypt, but the minister of Pharaoh, and obliged to govern himself by the prevailing customs of the kingdom. It appears, he extended only the king’s revenues, and gave him such a command over the property of the people, as might enable him to arrange the management of it to the best general advantage. This might be peculiarly proper in Ægypt, though not necessary to be imitated here. Its fertility depended on the equal distribution of the waters of the Nile. It was necessary for the general benefit, that there should be an indisputed power to direct the course of the various canals, which communicated the water to each district. While the king had an equal interest in all, no particular part would be neglected. Joseph gives four-fifths of the produce, “for feed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your housholds, and for food for your little ones.” This confines the peoples share to their own maintenance, and the supply of seed. We are left to conclude, that every expense attending the distribution of the river, except perhaps manual labour, was paid out of the king’s fifth part: and as in all good governments, the interest of the king and the people is one, Joseph, by his nominal purchase of the people and their lands, might probably have in view such an accession of power, as might enable him to direct the whole to general advantage. After the charter was confirmed, no ill use could be made of the power, and an English farmer would gladly pay one-fifth of his produce to him who should stock his farm, and pay his rent, and all his publick and parish taxes.
Page 38. “The Jews are not restrained from purchasing their own brethren.” The Jews were commanded to treat their brethren, when reduced to a six years servitude, with lenity, as hired or free servants, and to send them out in the sabbatical year free, and not let them go away empty. The only cases in which we can suppose Jews could be made to serve, are their being sold for debt, or their preferring the service of a master to labour on their own account. In these cases, the laws of Moses take care of them, that they be not oppressed, and, besides the original purchase-money of their services, to have a recompence when the period is finished.
It is in this case of an Hebrew servant, that we are to look for the genuine Mosaic principles of slavery. Even here the law expresses a jealousy of the master’s conduct, and guards against the abuse of his authority, restricting it to six years, and prescribing the manner of exercising it. Therefore when the Jews are allowed to make perpetual slaves of the Heathen, we are to consider it as a particular dispensation respecting their situation among idolaters, by which, in every slave, they made a proselyte to the true religion; or like divorces, an indulgence to their hardness of heart, which was not then capable of the purity and benevolence of the gospel, by which, marriage was made perpetual, and all men were to be treated as brethren. We can infer the doctrine of perpetual slavery as little from its permission to the Jews, as we can the keeping of concubines from the practice of Abraham, or David. Divorces are permitted to the Jews in similar expressions with the permission to hold slaves; yet our Saviour tells us, it was not so from the beginning. Moses (Deut. xvii. 14.) gives directions for the choice and duty of a king, yet Samuel tells the Jews, they had offended God in asking for a king. And though God condescended to give them a king in a manner which more unequivocally shewed his assent, than that approbation, sanction and command, which the author incautiously affirms to be given to the “slave-trade;” yet Samuel concludes them to be not the less guilty, for persevering in the request. We should be more careful than this author shews himself, how we apply our ignorant conjectures to the divine conduct; as p. 16, “Without allowing the licitness of the slave-trade, it is impossible to reconcile the justice of God with his own scriptural decisions concerning its nature;” that (p. 32) “God, without a glaring opposition to the rights of his justice, could not have approved the conduct of Joseph in enslaving the Ægyptians, and inflicted a lasting punishment on Reuben for his incest, if his enslaving of the Ægyptians had been a crime.” These expressions would be shocking from an infidel; in what an horrid cause doth a clergyman use them?
The minds of the Jews had been broken and debased by the Egyptian bondage; the law was given them as a school-master to train them up for the perfect religion of the gospel. Their conduct in the wilderness, their frequent rebellions amidst miracles, and in the immediate presence of their Divine Deliverer, can only be imagined by those who have had opportunities of seeing how man is shorn of his worth by slavery. Only two men of all who were grown up when they came out of Egypt, were thought deserving to enter into Canaan. That whole generation must be worn out in the wilderness; and their children must be trained for 40 years before they are permitted to take possession. Their laws therefore respected the hardness of their hearts, though founded on principles which led insensibly to perfection. Thus while the perpetuity of the servitude of the Heathens condescended to the hardness of their hearts, the easy temporary service of their brethren looked forward to the gospel times, not differing, but in being for a fixed period, from modern servitude for wages in free states.
Therefore when this writer, p. 39. calls this latter service, “A Slave Trade;” the meaning of the terms is perverted. Or let him reduce his Leverpool slave trade to the circumstances of a Jew serving his brother for six years, and we shall have few objections to bring against it. What he calls there “selling him again,” was transferring his service to another brother (not an Heathen) for the remainder of the term, as an apprentice is turned over to a second master.