nations were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and
christian nation, no more than a cypher--or in other words, those
heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the
name and form of slavery, while wretchedness and endless miseries were
reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers,
ourselves and our children by _christian_ Americans!

These positions, I shall endeavour, by the help of the Lord, to
demonstrate in the course of this _appeal_, to the satisfaction of the
most incredulous mind--and may God Almighty who is the father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, open your hearts to understand and believe the
truth.

The _causes_, my brethren, which produce our wretchedness and
miseries, are so very numerous and aggravating, that I believe the pen
only of a Josephus or a Plutarch, can well enumerate and explain them.
Upon subjects, then, of such incomprehensible magnitude, so
impenetrable, and so notorious, I shall be obliged to omit a large
class of, and content myself with giving you an exposition of a few of
those, which do indeed rage to such an alarming pitch, that they
cannot but be a perpetual source of terror and dismay to every
reflecting mind.

I am fully aware, in making this appeal to my much afflicted and
suffering brethren, that I shall not only be assailed by those whose
greatest earthly desires are, to keep us in abject ignorance and
wretchedness, and who are of the firm conviction that heaven has
designed us and our children to be slaves and _beasts of burden_ to
them and their children.--I say, I do not only expect to be held up to
the public as an ignorant, impudent and restless disturber of the