Henry Hew Dalrymple, Esq. 1779.—Slaves are treated so well, eating and working with their Masters, that they are not distinguishable from free men.
James Kiernan,—Persons of property there have a great number of persons under the denomination of Slaves, whom they treat as Europeans would people of their own family.
Parke.
“The Mandingo Master can neither deprive his domestic Slave of life, nor sell him to a stranger, without first calling a palaver on his conduct; or, in other words, bringing him to a public trial.” (p. 23)
“He told me, that he had always behaved towards me as if I had been his father and master.” (p. 68.)
“He sometimes eats out of the same bowl with his camel driver, and reposes himself, during the heat of the day, upon the same bed.”—(p. 155.)
“In all the laborious occupations above described, the Master and his Slaves work together, without distinction of superiority.”
The authority of the Master over the domestic Slaves elsewhere observed, extends only to reasonable correction; for the Master cannot sell his domestic without having first brought him to a public trial before the chief men of the place.”—(p. 286.)
Bristol Slave Trade formerly.—William of Malmsbury, book ii. ch. 20.—Life of St. Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester.
Directly opposite the Irish coast there is a seaport town called Bristol, the inhabitants of which, as well as others of the English, frequently sail into Ireland on trading speculations. St. Wolstan put an end to a very ancient custom of theirs, in which they had become so hardened, that neither the love of God, nor that of the king (William the Conqueror) had been able to abolish it. For they sold into Ireland, at a profit, people whom they had bought up throughout all England, and they exposed to sale maidens in a state of pregnancy, with whom they made a sort of mock marriages. There you might see with grief, fastened together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings of both sexes, of elegant forms and in the very bloom of youth, a sight sufficient to excite pity even in Barbarians, daily offered for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brutal instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay, even their own offspring; yet, St. Wolstan destroyed at length this inveterate and hereditary custom. The historian goes on to state, that from the effect of religious instruction, the people of Bristol not only renounced this vicious practice themselves, but afforded an example of reform to the rest of England; harsh methods however were resorted to where persuasion was in vain; for one of the inhabitants of Bristol who resisted the good bishop’s reform with peculiar obstinacy, was expelled from the city, and had his eyes put out.