which Queen Elizabeth was deceived, in whose reign the execrable slave
trade began in England. This great princess seems on the very
commencement of the trade to have questioned its lawfulness. She seems
to have entertained a religious scruple concerning it, and indeed, to
have revolted at the very thoughts of it. She seems to have been aware
of the evils to which its continuance might lead, or that, if it were
sanctioned, the most unjustifiable means might be made use of to procure
the persons of the natives of Africa. And in what light she would have
viewed any acts of this kind, had they taken place to her knowledge, we
may conjecture from this fact--that when Captain (afterwards Sir John)
Hawkins returned from his first voyage to Africa and Hispaniola, whither
he had carried slaves, she sent for him, and, as we learn from Hill's
Naval History, expressed her concern lest any of the Africans should be
carried off _without their free consent_, declaring, "that it would be
detestable and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers."
Capt. Hawkins promised to comply with the injunctions of Elizabeth in
this respect. But he did not keep his word; for when he went to Africa
again, _he seized_ many of the inhabitants _and carried them off_ as
slaves, "Here (says Hill) began the horrid practice of forcing the
Africans into slavery, an injustice and barbarity, which, so sure as
there is vengeance in Heaven for the worst of crimes, will sometime be
the destruction of all who encourage it." Take as an instance of the
second what Labat, a Roman missionary, records in his account of the
Isles of America. He says, that Louis the Thirteenth was very uneasy,
when he was about to issue the edict, by which all Africans coming into
his colonies were to be made slaves; and that this uneasiness continued,
till he was assured that the introduction of them in this capacity into
his foreign dominions was the readiest way of _converting them_ to the
principles _of the Christian religion_. It was upon these ideas then,
namely, that the Africans left their own country voluntarily, and that