Baxter's directions to slave-holders, revived; first printed in London, in the year 1673. : To which is subjoined, a letter from the worthy Anthony Benezet, late of this city, deceased, to the celebrated abbe Raynal, with his answer, whch were first published in the Brussels gazette, March 7, 1782.

Abstract from Baxter's Christian Directory, &c. Page 557.

"Directions to those Masters, in Foreign Plantations, who have Negroes and other Slaves, being a Solution of seve∣ral Cases about them.

"UNDERSTAND well how far your power over your slaves extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto; such as is a sufficient difference between men and brutes, that they are of as good a kind as you, that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty; that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with your∣selves; Remember that God is their absolute owner, and that you have none but a derived and limited property in them; that they and you are equally under the go∣vernment and laws of God;—Remember that God is their tender Father, and if they be as good, doth love them as well as you, and that the greater your power is over them, the greater your charge is of them, and your duty for them; the fourth Commandment requireth masters to see that all within their gates observe the Sab∣bath day, so must you exercise both your power and love to bring them to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and to the just obedience of God's commands.

Those therefore, that keep their Negroes and slaves from hearing God's word, and from becoming Christians, do openly profess contempt of Christ the Redeemer, and contempt of the souls of men, and indeed they declare that, their worldly profit is their treasure, and their God."

"If this comes to the hands of any of our natives in

Barbadoes, or other islands and plantations, who are said to be guilty of this most heinous sin, yea, and to live upon it, intreat them further to consider, how cursed a crime it is to equal men to beasts? Is not this your prac∣tice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end as you do your horses; to labour for your com∣modity, as if they were baser than you and made to serve you? Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you vilify them as savages and barba∣rous wretches? Did they ever do any thing more savage, than to use not only men's bodies as beasts, but their souls, as if they were made for nothing but to actuate their bodies in your worldly drudgery?

"Doth not the very example of such cruelty, besides your keeping them from Christianity, directly tend to teach them to hate Christianity, as if it taught men to be so much worse than dogs, or tygers?

"Do you not mark how God hath followed you with plagues? and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of so many? Remember the late fire at the bridge, in Barbadoes; Re∣member the drowning of your governor, loss of ships at sea, and the many judgments that have overtaken you, and at the present, the terrible mortality that is among you.

"Will not the example and warning of neighbouring countries rise up in judgment against you, and condemn you? You cannot but hear how odious the Spanish name is made (and thereby, alas! the Christian name also, a∣mong the West Indians) for their most inhuman cruelties in Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and other places, which are described by Joseph Acosta, a jesuit of their own; And what comfort are you like to have, at last, in that money which is purchased at such a price? Will not your money and you perish together? Will not you have a worse than Gehazi's leprosy, with it? Yea, worse than Achan's death by stoning; and as bad as Ju∣das his hanging himself, unless repentance shall prevent it? Do you not remember the terrible words in Jude, "Wo unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain,

and ran greedily after the error of Balaam; and ii. Peter, 2, 3, 14, 15, through covetousness they make merchandise of you. An heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children (or children of a curse) which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bezor, who loved the wages of unrighte∣ousness; but was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass speaking with man's voice, forbad the madness of the pro∣phet. When you shall every one hear, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall all these things be, which thou hast provided. Luke xii. 19, 20, 21."

"What men in the world doth James speak to, if not to you—James v. 1 to 4. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and bowl for your miseries that shall come upon you: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten: your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: Ye have heaped treasure, together for the last days: Behold the hire of the labourers which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped, have entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth;" How much more then the cry of betrayed souls?

After these animadversions on the iniquity of holding and treating men as slaves, for the private emolument of the possessors, he proceeds to consider divers cases under which men are held in bondage, from whence he adduces the following conclusions.

"A nominal Christian, who by wickedness forfeit∣eth his life or freedom, may penally be made a slave as well as an Infidel; and a poor and needy Christian may sell himself into a harder state of servitude than he would chuse, or we could otherwise put him into; but to go as∣pirates, and catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thefts in the world, and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them, and use them as beasts for their mere commodity,

and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate Devils, than Christians.

He then queries; "But what if men buy Negroes, or other slaves, of such as we have just cause to believe did steal them by piracy, or buy them of those who have no power to sell them, and not hire, or buy them by their own consent, or by the consent of those who had power to sell them, nor take them captives.

And answers, "It is their heinous fin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them from slavery; hav∣ing done it, undoubtedly they are presently bound to de∣liver them, because, by right, the man is his own, and therefore, no man else can have a just title to him.

Question, "But may I not sell him again, and make my money of him, seeing I leave him as I found him—?

Answer, "No; Because when you have taken pos∣session of him, and he becomes a pretended property, then the injury that is done him is by you, which, before, was only by another; and tho' the wrong be no greater than the other did him, yet, being done by you, it is your sin.

Question, "But may I not return him to him that I bought him of?

Answer, "No; for that is but injuring him, by de∣livering him to another to continue the injury: To say as Pilate (I am innocent of the blood of this just man) will be no proof of your innocence: Yea, God's law bindeth you to love, and works of love, and therefore you should do your best to free him. He that is bound to help to save a man that is fallen into the hands of thieves, by the high way, if he should buy that man, as a slave, of the thieves, may not after, give him up to thieves again.

"If they be Infidels, use them so as tendeth to win them to Christ, and the love of religion, by shewing them that Christians are less worldly, less cruel and less passi∣onate, and more wise, charitable, holy and meek than a∣ny other persons are. Wo to them, who by their cruelty, and covetousness, do scandalize even slaves, and hinder their conversion and salvation. Remember that even a slave may be one of those neighbours that you are bound

to love as yourselves, and to do unto as you would be done by, if your case was his, which, if you do, you will need no more direction for his relief."

Extract from the Independent Gazetteer, dated Philadelphia▪ June 15, 1782, viz. "The Liberality of Sentiment displayed in the following Letter, not only evinces that the Author's Heart must be exceedingly Humanized, but that it abounds with a Phi∣lanthropy, which reflects Honour to Human Nature.

Brussels, March 7.

"The Abbé Raynal, whom we have the happiness to possess, together with other strangers, in this city, has just now received from a Quaker, in Philadelphia, the following letter in French, the tendency of which, enti∣tles it to publication. It is presumed it will be read with pleasure.

My friend Abbé Raynal,

From the idea which I conceived of the justice and generosity of thy sentiments, I took the liberty of writing to thee, about 7 or 8 months past, under cover of my friend B. F. and likewise by J. B. who, we are afraid, was lost on his passage. Having received no answer, by several vessels, nor knowing whether my letters reached thee, or whether thine miscarried; and a good opportu∣nity offering, by my friend Dr. G. I now seize it to send thee two copies of a small extract of the origin and prin∣ciples of my brethren, the Quakers, whom, I observe in such of thy writings which have come to our hands, thou didst not think unworthy of thy attention.

I have nothing to add to what I already wrote thee, but shall repeat my wish of saluting thee affectionately, on the principles of reason and humanity, which consti∣tute that grand circle of love and charity, unconfined by our parentage or country; but which, with affectionate cordiality, embraces the whole creation, earnestly desiring, to the utmost of my abilities, to promote the happiness of all men, even my enemies themselves, could I have any.

I beseech God to give thee strength, that thou may∣est

continue to hold up to mankind, thy brethren, princi∣ples tending to replenish their hearts with goodness, friendship and charity towards each other; that thus thou mayest do the utmost of thy power, to render men reason∣able, useful, and consequently happy; and more especi∣ally, that thou mayest strenuously combat that false prin∣ciple of honour, or rather intolerable pride and folly, which so strongly prevails in our nation, where the most indolent and the least useful fancy themselves, and are re∣puted the most noble. Let us endeavour to make them sensible, that men are noble but in an exact proportion to their being rational. The happiness which is to be found in virtue alone, is sought for by men, through the titles acquired by their fathers, for their activity in those wars which have desolated the world, or in the wealth ac∣cumulated by their ancestors; two means, generally un∣just and oppressive, and consequently rather the sources of shame and humiliation. For, as the Chinese Philosopher well observed, "There is scarcely one rich man out of one hundred, who was not himself an oppressor, or the son of an oppressor."

Let us display to princes and the rulers of nations the example of Numa-Pompilius, who, by a Conduct op∣posite to that of Romulus, his predecessor, and most of his successors, rendered the Romans, during his long reign, so respectable and happy. Above all, my dear friend, let us represent to our compatriots the abominable iniqui∣ty of the Guinea trade. Let us put to the blush the pre∣tended disciples of the benign Saviour of the world, for the encouragement given to the unhappy Africans, in in∣vading the liberty of their own brethren. Let us rise, and rise with energy, against the corruption, introduced into the principles and manners of the masters and own∣ers of slaves, by a conduct so contrary to humanity, rea∣son and religion. Let us be still more vehement, in re∣presenting its baneful influence on the principles and manners of their wretched offspring, necessarily educated in idleness, pride, and all the vices to which human na∣ture is liable.

How desirable it is that Lewis XVI, whose virtues

and good dispositions have been so nobly praised, would set an example to the other potentates of Europe, by for∣bidding his subjects to be concerned in a traffick so evil in itself, and so corrupt in its consequences, and that he would also issue out ordinances, in favour of such of the Negroes who now are slaves in his dominions.

Alas! should Christianity, that law of love and cha∣rity, work its proper effect on the hearts of its pretended disciples, we would see numbers of Christians traverse A∣frica, and both the Indies, not to pollute themselves with slavery and slaughter, nor to accumulate wealth, the su∣preme wish of the present nominal Christians; but that Divine love would impel them to visit remote regions, in order to make the inhabitants acquainted with the cor∣ruption of the human heart, and invite them to seek for the influence of that grace, proposed by the gospel, by which they may obtain salvation.

I am under the necessity of concluding hastily, re∣questing thou wouldst excuse faults which time does not allow me to correct, and to write to me by various oppor∣tunities, the vessels bound to these parts, often missing their destination.

I am, affectionately, thy friend, A. B.

To which the Abbot returned the following Answer,

Brussels, December 26, 1781.

Your letters, sir, have miscarried, except that of Ju∣ly 16, 1781, which happily I received, together with the pamphlet, full of light and sensibility, which accompani∣ed it. Never was a present more agreeable to me. My satisfaction was equal to the respect I have always had for the society of Quakers. May it please Heaven to cause all nations to adopt their principles! Men would then be happy; and the globe not stained with blood. Let us join in our supplications to the Supreme Being, that he may unite us in the bonds of a tender and unalterable charity.

I am, &c. RAYNAL.