Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold."

Thomson also, in his Seasons, marks this traffic as destructive and cruel,
introducing the well-known fact of sharks following the vessels employed in
it;

"Increasing still the sorrows of those storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with three-fold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along,
And from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,
Demands his share of prey, demands themselves.
The stormy fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal."

Neither was Richard Savage forgetful in his poems of the Injured Africans:
he warns their oppressors of a day of retribution for their barbarous
conduct. Having personified Public Spirit, he makes her speak on the
subject in the following manner:--

"Let by my specious name no tyrants rise,
And cry, while they enslave, they civilize!