Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation;--but man over men
He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."

I might mention bishop Saunderson and others, who bore a testimony equally
strong against the lawfulness of trading in the persons of men, and of
holding them in bondage, but as I mean to confine myself to those, who have
favoured the cause of the Africans specifically, I cannot admit their names
into any of the classes which have been announced.

Of those who compose the first class, defined as it has now been, I cannot
name any individual who took a part in this cause till between the years
1670 and 1680. For in the year 1640, and for a few years afterwards, the
nature of the trade and of the slavery was but little known, except to a
few individuals, who were concerned in them; and it is obvious that these
would neither endanger their own interest nor proclaim their own guilt by
exposing it. The first, whom I shall mention, is Morgan Godwyn, a clergyman
of the established church. This pious divine wrote a Treatise upon the
subject, which he dedicated to the then archbishop of Canterbury. He gave
it to the world, at the time mentioned, under the title of "The Negros and
Indians Advocate." In this treatise he lays open the situation of these
oppressed people, of whose sufferings he had been an eye-witness in the
island of Barbadoes. He calls forth the pity of the reader in an affecting
manner, and exposes with a nervous eloquence the brutal sentiments and
conduct of their oppressors. This seems to have been the first work
undertaken in England expressly in favour of the cause.

The next person, whom I shall mention, is Richard Baxter, the celebrated
divine among the Nonconformists. In his Christian Directory, published