master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations."

This cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year 1729. The
planters, merchants, and others, gave it of course all the publicity in
their power. And the consequences were as might easily have been
apprehended. In a little time slaves absconding were advertised in the
London papers as runaways, and rewards offered for the apprehension of
them, in the same brutal manner as we find them advertised in the land
of slavery. They were advertised also, in the same papers, to be sold by
auction, sometimes by themselves, and at others with horses, chaises,
and harness? They were seized also by their masters, or by persons
employed by them, in the very streets, and dragged from thence to the
ships; and so unprotected now were these poor slaves, that persons in
nowise concerned with them began to institute a trade in their persons,
making agreements with captains of ships going to the West Indies to put
them on board at a certain price. This last instance shows how far human
nature is capable of going, and is an answer to those persons who have
denied that kidnapping in Africa was a source of supplying the Slave
Trade. It shows, as all history does from the time of Joseph, that where
there is a market for the persons of human beings, all kinds of
enormities will be practised to obtain them.

These circumstances then, as I observed before, did not fail of
producing new coadjutors in the cause. And first they produced that able
and indefatigable advocate, Mr. Granville Sharp. This gentleman is to be
distinguished from those who preceded him by this particular, that,
whereas these were only writers, he was both a writer and an actor in
the cause. In fact, he was the first labourer in it in England. By the
words "actor" and "labourer," I mean that he determined upon a plan of
action in behalf of the oppressed Africans, to the accomplishment of