Respectfully shew,
That your memorialists, having been appointed, by various Societies, in different parts of the Union, for the benevolent purpose of endeavouring to alleviate or suppress some of the miseries of their fellow-creatures, deem it their duty to approach the Congress of the United States with a respectful representation of certain evils,—the unauthorised acts of a few, but injurious to the interest and reputation of all.
America, dignified by being the first in modern times, to assert and defend the equal rights of man, suffers her fame to be tarnished and her example to be weakened, by a cruel commerce, carried on from some of her ports, for the supply of foreign nations with African slaves.
To enumerate the horrors incident to this inhuman traffic, of which all the worst passions of mankind form the principal materials, would be unnecessary, when we offer to prove its existence.
Nor is it requisite to consume much of your valuable time in the endeavour to prove it a national injury.
While it exposes the lives and the morals of our seamen to peculiar danger, it renders all complaints of retaliation unjust; for those who deprive others of their liberty, for the benefit of foreign countries, cannot reasonably murmur, if, by other foreign nations, they are deprived of their own.
True it is, that the captivity at Algiers is not without a hope, and that the slavery of the West-Indies terminates only with existence; but, in proportion as that to which we are accessary is more severe, the duty of desisting from it becomes more urgent.
Your memorialists observe, and mention with pleasure, that this venal cruelty is at present confined to a few ports, and a few persons. Hence it becomes more easy to destroy a degrading exception from the general dignity of our commerce, and to restore our citizens to their former fame, of preferring the spirit of freedom to the delusions of interest.
An additional reason for the legislative interference, now requested, arises from the natural consequence of the facts already suggested.
Foreigners, seduced by the example, and believing that they may commit without reproach, what American citizens commit with impunity, avail themselves of our ports to fit out their vessels for the same traffic. Thus we become the accomplices of their offences, and partake of the guilt without the miserable consolation of sharing its profits.