Studies of nature (Volume 1).

  • Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 1737-1814. Etudes de la nature. English
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of nature (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    manner the Powers who pretend to be subjected to the laws of Jesvs Christ settle their quarrels.* » These wrecks were undoubtedly canied farllior than the Azores. It is probable tliat at Uiis sea- son a considerable part of them floated as far as tiie coasts and the western islands of Africa. Now the ground of this quarrel between England and Holland was precisely the African Slave-Tradc. Those powers had commenced hostilities the year before on the coasts of Guinea and at the Cape^le- Verd Islands, to the iniin of these Countries. I suppose therefore that those awful monuments of the battle ofTOstend, must have passed through the Cape-de-Verd Islajids near to Uiat of St. John, which IS so little frequented by Europeans that the Portngueze caU it Brava, or saragc. It's good and lios- pitable iidiabitants, accoi-ding to an English Navigator of the name of Roberts, who had a most de. lightful opportunity )f putting these amiable qualities to the test, are so humble, that they look on men of their own colour as subjected by the authority of GOD himself to the yoke of white men. Iii this opinion they are confirmed b} observing the bahince of European commerce, one of the beams of which presents to Europe benefits only, while the other, weighed down by calamities, continually presses on wretched Africa. But when from the summit of their rocks, under the shade of their cotton-trees and of their plan- tains, they beheld along tlieir peaceful shores this frightful train of masts, yards, g-alleries, poojB, prows, half burnt, stained witli human blood, and intermingled with European standaitls, they then saw the scale loaded with tlie miseries of Africa rise for a moment, and the other in it's turn sink with an oppressive weight on Europe ; and from this re-action of calamity they undoubtedly perceived that an universal Justice governs by equal laws all the Nations of the Globe. A King of France, it has been said, ordered the bodies of malefaciors to be thrown into the rive?, marked with this dismal inscription: Let the Kinfs Justice pass. The Chinese and Japanese punish in the same manner the pirates who infest the navigation of their rivers. Thus tlie wrecks of these ships of war, which had so often scattered terror over the Atlantic Ocean, were hurried along by it's Currents; and their enormous bulging hulks, blackened by the fire, reddened with human blood, and become a sport to the billows of Africa, spoke much more distinctly than any inscription could to the oppressed inhabitants of those shores: Behold noiu, 0, ye black jnen! the fi/ory of the IVhites, and thi Justice of COD,passing along. It would be a calc\ilation worthy, I do not say of our modem Politicians, wlio no longer set a value on any thing in the World, except gold and power, but ol'a friend of humanity, to ascertain. Whether the Negro Slave-Trade has not occasioned as many woes to Europe as to Airica; and what are th* benefits of which it has been productive to these two divisions of the Globe. In the first place it would be necessary to take into the account of the calamities of Africa the wars which it's Potentates wage with each other, in oi-der to find a supply of slaves to answer the demand of European traders ; the barbarous despotism of it's Sovereigns, who for the attainment of tliis object deliver up their own subjects; the unnaturally degraded character of their subjects, who, after their example, frequently drag to these inhuman markets tlieir wives and their children ; the depopulation of most of the maritime countries of Africa, reduced to a desert by the emigration of their inhabitant:; who have been sweeped away into slaveiy; the mortality of a very considerable proportion of these wretches, who perish on their passage to America and the West-Indies, by unwholesome tbod and th« scurvy, excessive labour, scantiness of provisions, the merciless whii)pings and other punishments ■which tliey are doomed to endure in our Colonies, and which destroy the greatest part with miseryi mortification and desjiair. Here undoubtedly is a sad detail of tears and bloodshed on the African side cf the account. But it is balanced at least by an equal train of evils on that of Europe: if you state on this side the very na- vigation of the coast of Africa, the con-uptcd air of which cames off the seamen of our trading ves- sels by whole crews at once, as well as the garrisons of our settlements on the coast and up the coun- try, by the dysentery, the scurvT, putrid fevers, aiMl especially by a lever peculiar to the coast of Guinea, which brings the stoutest man to his grave in three days. To these physical evils may be added the moral maladies of Slavery, which destroj- in our American Colonies the VC17 first feelings of humanity ; because wherever there are slaves, tyi-ants spring up, together with the influence of this mo- ral depravation upon Europe. Add to the evils of this quarter of the World the resources in tlie field- employments of America, from which our own commoruilty and peasantrj- are excluded, multitudes of whom arc langiii^hingat home in wretchedness for want of employment and of the means of subsis- tence ; the wars which the Slave-trade kindles among the maritime Pcrners of Europe, tlieir settle- ments taken and retaken ; their naval engagements, which sweep away nine thousand men at a stroke, without reckoning those who are maimed for life; their wars which like a pestilence are com. inimicated to the interior of Europe by their alliances, and to the rest of the World by their conv r.ierce ; when all Uuse are taken into the statement, it must be allowed that the amount of Europca-i e-.it» is a com]>lvte balance to tliose of Afriea,