The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1785-11-07 00:00:00, page 1

Ye guardians of our state, permit one apostrophe
to my countrymen: Who gave you a better right,
O ye Americans, to go to the coast of Africa, and be
tray and kidnap its quiet and peaceful inhabitants
from under their “ vines and fig-trees;" I fay, who
gave you a better right to do this, than the inhabi
tants of Africa have to come into the open seas and
boldly, and by force of arms, to seize on your friends
and citizens ? And can you believe it less culpable in
the fight of him who “ fees with equal eye, as Lord of
all," for you to purchase and retain in perpetual and
unredeemable slavery the captives brought into your
country from thence, than for the inhabitants of
Africa to purchase and keep your countrymen in sla
very until redeemed by their friends? Yet we all join
in the cry against the inhumanity and barbarity of
the piratical Rates of Barbary; nay, I have heard
people wonder that justice fuffered such mifereants
[0 live.—Oh, my countrymen ! learn to aft con
sistently; let your own declarations, your own acti
ons, and your own feelings, in fimiliar cases, have
their due weight !
But methinks I hear some of you fay, the slaves
among us live much better than they did in their
own country, nay some of them better than their
masters; so you think perhaps—but pray do they
think so? I remember to have read an observation of
one of the fathers of the church, that “ brown
bread with the gospel was good fare," and I am inclined
to believe that most of our slaves would think that no
“ bread" at all, but yams, dates and other natural
productions of their own, of this, or indeed of any
other country, with liberty, would be much better
fare than slavery with even the delicious fare which
they are now pemitted to fee,on enjoy.
But you will perhaps fay, by being brought into
this country, they have an opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the glorious truths of the gospel;
this may be true with refped to some, but it is as
true that they come under such livetted prejudices
as must, without a miracle, prevent their ever be
lieving them; and, I presume, it is as easy b, a mi
racle to make them acquainted with them in their
own country as to make them believe them in ours.
Further, you acknowledge they came here unacquaint-
To the Honourable the Legislature of the State of
Neu)- erfeg.
Gentlemen,
PERMIT a heart warm with the sentiments
of humanity to address you on a fubjeß
the most interesting to the feelings of hu
man nature, of any which can come be
fore you.
Liberty and property, the most dear and sacred of
all the rights of mankind, life only excepted, is the
fubjed of this address, and on this fubjedtwhat A
merican is there who does not feel the most poig
nant sensations! Yet, alas ! we, who but the other
day fought with the most unbounded ardour for these
inestimable blcffings; we who, through the courle of
a nine years war, buffered every difficulty and distress
rather than be deprived of them; we who with en
thusiastic zeal at our firft outset, declared, " These
truths to be felfevident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator \vitli
certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness :" we, I fiy,
who once poffefied such sentiments, and were capa
ble of such adions, seem now to have entirely for
gotten those just and exalted ideas, and, in our con
stant walk of life, aR diametrically contrary. To
what can it be attributed, that we who could think,
speak and ad so nobly on the subject of others re
ducing us to slavery, Rould think, speak and act so
basely on the fubje& of our keeping others in slave
ry! With what fatisfa&ion have I heard the solemn
sigh, and seen the bosom heave, and the tear trickle
from the eye of sensibility, on hearing a well told,
though fictitious, tale of the captivity and conse
quent slavery of the Americans among African pi
rates ! But, alas! where is the tear that flows, the
breast that warms, or the heart that feels for the sla
very of Africans among Americans; yet where is the
difference in natural justice between the one and the
other ?
[Vol. VIII.] T HE [Numb. 391.]
Ir FTT
TRENTON:
M ONDA Y, November 7, 1785.
Printed by ISAAC COLLIN S, Printer to the State.
Preparations are going on again in our arsenals
with the utmost activity, and magazines of provisions,
forage, and warlike stores, are forming with so much
diligence, that we appear to be at the eve of a war.
In short, every thing that is going forward in these
provinces leaves us little room to exped a continu
ance of peace, and advices from Paris only increase
our fears on this head, as they announce nothing
favourable in regard to the renewal of the negociati
ons between the Imperial ambaflador and those of the
republick.
P A R I S, August 15.
The suppression of the impost of the third twentieth.
Finally, let me intreat you to confider these obser
vations, though not coming under your notice
in the usual mode of petitioning, as addressed to you
by all those whose sentiments they speak, and to give
them that weight which, not their own merit, but
the nature and importance of the fubjed, demands;
it will then be of noconfequench Whether signed by an
individual or by THOUSANDS.
cfo&cfocforfocfocfoi%%^^^^^^^^efoefo^
Foreign Intelligence.
^-^^ —^^
CONSTANTINOPLE, July 9.
In the last conference between the grand vizir
and the internuncio of the emperor, the former gave
the latter the most positive and unequivocal proofs
that the sultan had nothing more at heart, than to
maintain the most perfed harmony and inviolable
friendship with his Imperial majesty.
The republick of Venice have been treated in a
very different Ryle by the divan. It has given the
Venetians to underhand, that it was its desire they
should make peace with the Tunifiahs; if they did
not, the porte would assist the latter with all their
forces. In consequence of this, their ambassador
with difficulty obtained a delay of 75 days, and he
has sent several expresses to the republick. The ba
fhaw of Scutari is supposed to have some orders rela
tive to this business; thus much we know of a cer
tainty, that the Venetians have entered into a treaty
with Russia, which may possibly engender another
war with the Ottoman Empire.
Selim Pacha, governor of Servia, has been stran
gled and beheaded, by order of the Porte.
July 22. Warlike preparations are continued
with the utmost vigour throughout the empire, and
the Captain Pacha vigilantly superintends the work
men, and the exerciie of the cannoneers distributed
in the different fortreffes.
Forgive, ye rulers of my country, this digression,
and let me beg you to confider the enormity of the
evil of permitting such a number of your felloe-men
to be kept in hopeless and perpetual slavery under
your government. Would it not be just, would it
not be politic, to go into a law fpr the gradual abo
lition of slavery? Let us give them liberty, let us
enable them to acquire and hold; property, and so to
become ufeful members of foefety. Is there no
friend to humanity among you who will introduce
such a law? If 1 may not fueled for so much, at
least let me beg for a revifal of the law refpeding the
manumission of slaves, and permit the man who i;
willing to emancipate his Rave to do it without dis
couragement. Surely he who would forego the la
bour of his slave, when in the prime of life, ought
not to be obliged to support him in its decline—jus
tice declares otherwise, and policy supports the de
claration.
ed with them; let me ask you then, or rather let me
beg you to afle your own heart,, have you sincere
ly endeavoured to make them acquainted with that
gospel, and both by inftru&ion and example
to make its precepts appear lovely in their
eyes ? Or have you not rather, by your example be
fore, and treatment of, them, brought them acquaint
ed with vices which in their native country, and state
of comparative innocence, they would have Rudder
ed at ?
ANTWER P, August 18.
Sept. 3. The new source of commerce, likely to
be opened by the present commercial expedition to the
South-Seas and North-Weft coast of America, bids
fair to be productive of the best consequence to this
nation. The extent of the coast is immense; that
part, discovered by our famous navigator, captain
Cook, in his third and last voyage round the world,
reaches from Cape-Blanco, in lat. 42, to the extreme
point of the continent, in lat. about 72 North, a dis
tance of 30 degrees or 1800 miles, all of which is in
habited, and many parts very full of people. In the
course of a very few years there is every probability
of immense quantities of our manufactures being con
sumed there (especially hard ware and woollens) the
inhabitants being at present totally destitute of every
European commodity. They clothe themselves with
the skins of various land and marine animals, many of
which are of the most valuable kind, especially the
sea-otter, the fur of which is most exquisitely fine,
all of which they part with for the most trifling toys
and trinkets. The furs find an excellent market at
LONDO N, August 31.
The Ministry having given up the Irish propositi
ons which passed the British parliament, but unex
pectedly met with so much opposition in Ireland, some
other scheme must be thought of for regulating the
commercial intercourse between the two countries.
In all probability this will be done by appointing
Commiffiohers early in the next session of parliament,
to form a code of laws that may answer the purpose,
and give more general fatisfadion than the late pro
positions; which, however, were never impartially
canvassed, but met with a great deal of foul-play and
felf-interefted opposition.—
Extrall of a letter from Minden, Hug. 18.
" The articles of confederacy, lately concluded at
Berlin, are to be published at large by order of his
Prussian majesty, when all the German princes will
be invited to accede to it, as likewise every foreign
power that wishes to preserve the Germanic Body in
violate, and to secure it from the encroachments the
emperor aims at. It will therefore become the
strongest league or alliance that ever took place."
Upon a computation made by the intendant of fi
nances in France, in the month of June last, it ap
peared that the French Weft-India islands had im
ported property, in the space of 13 months, into the
mother country, by which she gained a balance of
5,250,0001. sterling. This is a sass, and Rews how
much the value 01 the French settlements in America
has encreafed within these few years.
By a letter from Cadiz, dated August 10, we
learn, that the Apollo, captain Tate (a fine new Rip
of 300 tons) from Philadelphia, with a valuable car
go, was flopped about 20 leagues from that place by
two Algerine corsairs, who took out fix barrels of
beef and other provisions; but finding the captain an
Englishman, and the Rip under English colours, they
fuffered him to proceed.
Extrafl of a letter from the Hague, August 19.
" We have not yet heard how the negociations go
on at Paris between the emperor and this republick:
the points to be fettled are, it is said, at present un
der deliberation in the different provinces, and till
their resolutions are known, not much progress can
be made at Paris. In the mean time the people in
Austrian Netherlands do not greatly credit a long du
ration of peace, and, in fa&, how can they, when
every preparation is making as if a war was at hand?
1 he works of some of the fortreffes are repairing and
re-building, and orders are daily arriving from court,
to double the warlike preparations, and to fill the
magazines; the troops are on the fame footing as in
time of war, and no furloughs are granted to either
officers or men, but for a very short time; surely
this has more of a belligerent than a pacific appear
ance."
penny is under consideration, and to substitute in its
room a tax on certain objects of luxury, which will
only affed the rich, such as laying a tax un coach
wheels, horses and footmen.
Tranquillity is re-eftabhfhed in Britanny; the re
giment of Penthievre has restored entire pacification.