who talk in a high strain of political liberty, and who consider the
privilege of imposing their own taxes as one of the unalienable rights
of mankind, should make no scruple of reducing a great proportion of
their fellow-creatures into circumstances by which they are not only
deprived of property, but almost of every species of right. Fortune,
perhaps, never produced a situation more calculated to ridicule a
liberal hypothesis, or to show how little the conduct of men is at the
bottom directed by any philosophical principles." It is a great honour
to the University of Glasgow, that it should have produced, before any
public agitation of this question, three professors[A], all of whom bore
their public testimony against the continuance of the cruel trade.

[Footnote A: The other was Professor Hutcheson, before mentioned in p.
56.]

From this time, or from about the year 1776, to about the year 1782, I
am to put down three other coadjutors, whose labours seem to have come
in a right season for the promotion of the cause.

The first of these was Dr. ROBERTSON. In his _History of America_ he
laid open many facts relative to this subject. He showed himself a warm
friend both of the Indians and Africans. He lost no opportunity of
condemning that trade, which brought the latter into bondage: "a trade,"
says he, "which is no less repugnant to the feelings of humanity than to
the principles of religion." And in his _Charles the Fifth_, he showed
in a manner that was clear, and never to be controverted, that
Christianity was the great cause in the twelfth century of extirpating
slavery from the west of Europe. By the establishment of this fact, he
rendered important services to the oppressed Africans. For if
Christianity, when it began to be felt in the heart, dictated the