Star.
London, England, 1831-04-18 00:00:00

Rae Wile( n, who has

from whose works we
1.;:t1 given formerly many extracts, has, in a most interesting
wo►k on his travels over the Holy Lund and Egypt, last
imblishetl, given the description of one among numerous
markets, for the sale of our fellow-creatures, which he vi-
sited in the East, particularly one on an extensive scale at
Grand Cairo, in Egypt. As this traffic, so revolting to the
hest feelings of our nature, is now occupying the serious at-
tention of the Legislature, we are most happy, and exclu-
sively, in having the opportunity to present Mr. Wilson's
description of this satanic custom of selling man to man, so
diametrically opposite to the gospel, and which cannot fail to
meet with the severest and justest condemnation, from
every friend to liberty and to oppressed humanity :
_ _

Revolting as the consideration cannot fail to appear to every mind,
there is a market in Cairo, which has been long established, for the sale
of be th texts of our fellow-creatures, who are obtained by the most un-
disguised rapine and atrocious frauds, torn from their homes and every
endearing relation in life ;5 a crime, which we learn from the earliest
authority, was visited with capital punishment. I entered this shocking
place with trembling steps, and under the most painful sensations I have
at any time experienced.
What man beholding this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his bead to think himself a man !

Although I may attempt to give a description of those objects that,
came under my view, yet no idea can possibly be conveyed of the heart-
rending scenes which occur within its accursed walls. In the first place,
the spot set apart for this devilish traffic, is a large court leading from
the principal street, in the form of a quadrangle, with a range of apart-
ments around, elevated about twenty feet from the ground, to which
there is access by a staircase at one end, and a sort of platform or gal.
Ivry is in front of these, not unlike the yards and accommodations far
travellers at some of the inns in London, and especially that of the
Bull and vomit. In these dens the slaves of both sexes are stowed,
just like sheep in a pen, squatted on the ground, and who are turned out to
intended purchase's. In one part I observed a Turkish female bargaining
for the purchase of a girl, who was put Into different attitudes, having
had been previously stripped entirely naked, for the purpose of exami-
nation, her joints, feet, and tongue inspected, and, after much nego.
tiation, refused to be taken, and remanded to her hovel. A second
was then turned out, whose feet, arm-pits, ears; mouth, and tongue, were
examined, just as a butcher:would feel a calf. Slave-dealers are better
acquainted than others with the characteristics of perfect health, any
detect as to which considerably diminishes the value of the object ; and
even the want of a tooth makes a slave some mahomeds or pares less in
point of price. In some of these confined holes I saw creatures of all
ages, up to fifty years, in a state of wretchedness and nudity, altogether
unexampled, huddled together like cattle housed in hovels,
and who appeared to exult at being called forth and viewed
by purchasers, under an idea that they would be extricated from
captivity. Should they not appear cheerful, so as to excite
tetemiun, and thus quicken a stele, they arc severely flogged. At the
erd of the gallery leading to these holes sat the guardian of this recep-
tacle of woe, in whose obdurate heart there truly appeared to be not one
particle of flesh. He was a moat tyrannical looking demon, seated
cross-legged on the ground, smoking with great sang Jroid, and watch.
irg with a keen eye for the arrival of buyers ; thus exercising an abso-
lute power never granted him by the Almighty Governor of this uni-
ver.e over fellow-mortals, who possess the same feelings as ourselves.
—Gracious God, that men should belong to others. What, is it to be
tolerated that human beings should be sold just as beasts of burden ?
Are they, of the same common parents, formed by the same God, and
redeemed by the precious blond of the same Saviour, to become the
chattels of others, and does not Christianity instruct us that all men are
brethren and one in Christ Jesus ? is this fulfilling the law of that exalted
charseter,who was himself love, and doing to others as we wish them to act
towards us, and loving our neighbour as ours. Ives! If we do love them,
can we for one moment consent to make them bondmen' and refuse to
bring them into the glorious liberty of the children of Gon. Where
can I find language sufficiently strong to express an utter abhorrence of
what is an outrage on the first feelings of humanity, and so deeply cul-
pable in the sight of Him whose grand and chiefeat attribute is mercy,
which extends over all his works? And is it not, I also ask, a most
daring violation of the divine law, which is most pointedly directed
against man-stealing ?
Here am I led to mention a similar state of wretchedness and degrada-
tion to which our fellow-creatures are reduced in our colonies. These,
it will be observed, are divided into two classes.—One is called crown
colonies, subject to the legislation of the crown, containing 225,000;
and the other chattered colonies, with their own legislation, having
580,000. Thus, at this very instant, are there, in the British posses-
sions, 800,000 human beings, the absolute property of their masters.
Many of them are branded, like cattle. with a hot iron on the should-
ers, the initials of their owner, thus bearing about with them, in in-
delible characters, the proof of their debased and servile state; and
their daily average labour throughout the year, amounts to the enor.
mous rate of fifteen or sixteen hours. Further, their masters have an
authority to punish them, by inflicting lashes on the naked body with a
cart whip, an instrument of peculiarly smarting severity, which cruellylaces
rates the flesh of the sufferer. Thousands ofchildren also are annually born
slaves within the British dominions, to no inheritance but that of the
hopeless service and oppression I have described ; thus swelling the above
most frightful r.umber of victims who are retained in the same state of
brutal depression. Again, these slaves are driven like cattle to toil
under the impulse of the lash of a scorching sun. They are without
the blessings ut the marriage tie, or the Christian sabbath, and totally
excluded from those civil privileges to which, as British subjects, they
are most unquestionably tetalcd. Such colonial bondsmen are in
reality mere merchandise, since they are liable to be seized in exe-
cution fur their mute t! debts, like furniture in their house, and be sold
by auction or otherwise. It often occurs that West India negroes of
both sexes elope from their proprietors, whose severity they dread, and
in their character advertised in the newspapers; the figures of naked
negroes in full speed, with their shape, stature, countenance, and marks
at the hot iron made on than, re given. Monstrum et horrendum !
Tell it not in Gash, nor proclaim it in Askalon."
Now, I demand, where is a defence to be found by slave.
dealers either in our own colonies, or cn one spot in the globe,
to establish a title to the possession of their fellow-creatures,
to inflict on them slavery, degradation. and torments revolting to human
nature ? such a usurpation of authority. must be laid down by reflect.
ing minds as contrary to all principles of justice, and to every sacred
obligation. Those characters, then. I do brand with the epithet of
public robbtrs ; and,l tearlessly declare to the world, that GOD created ,
the image of hinnalf not to be bought and sold as the beasts of the
field, or fowls of the air, but for the purposes of freedom and happiness,
and extends his arm towards them, that he may exercise unfettered the
heavenly gift of tree will, and who will unquestionably visit with his I
just and most tremendous vengeance and wrath those who would tree- I
tenably dare to counteract his glorious and all wise intentions. But
the time is fast approaching when the slave and his unjust and
cruel owner must stand before the bar of the ALMIGHTY. I
would therefore call upon British Christians to rouse themselves, and
strain every nerve to tear up this vile and abominable plant of slavery
in all directions, where it contaminates the earth, poisons the very air,
since " life dies and death lives," and thus extirpate a sytem utterly ,
inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, where children, torn from their
parents, are groaning under the cruel yoke of bondage. Lct others,
who view the human flesh-market at Cairo, tell in more forcible len- ;
guage than I call utter, the tale of woe, and this public and gross out.:
rage on sufferirg humanity.
Viewing this awful scene of crime, which would have touched the
heart of adamant, I often expressed a wish that some of those distin.
guished individuals who have so nobly undertaken the grand cause of
this unfortunate part of the human race, and raised their voice in
the British senate against such monstrous traffic, bad been
present, as they would then have had the most demonstrative
evidence of that wretchedness and degradation it occasioned. On
the whole, let toe again plead in the behalf of these unhappy
beings, who are thus deprived of all human privileges, and express a
most ardent and heartfelt hope that their case may be powerfully taken
up by the enlightened and humane. Never will there be effaced from
my memory an observation of one of the most enlightened and eminent
statesmen of the age, " who, though dead, yet speaketh," and whose
name will be kept alive in the imperishable page of history. "It was
true that the spirit of the Christian religion was hostile to that unna-
tural state in which man became the property of man, as it was to every
set committed against morality ; and the spirit of that religion required
the ultimate abolition of slavery." In reference to such religion, it
may also be remarked that the great apostle Paul, whom we profess to
admire, was an enemy to slavery. Were not his writings decidedly
hostile to, and personal eloquence thundered against it; who advo-
cated the tights of man founded on the book of inspiration, that
God made of one blood all nations of men, proclaiming liberty
to the captive, us among those things which are just and lovely. In
conclusion, the tenets of the faith of the Egyptians, and as laid down
by the Ratan, reprobate mankind for impenitence and hawlasto of
heart, and running headlong and without remorse into evil, yet it Is
xtraerdinary that they should go on in such scandalous Isms of bars
batity, as if these matures were totally exempted from the cosanton lot
of humanity. Further it is the observation of an Arable writer, that
" the slave is one restrained and deprived of the delight of freedom,
but at the day of judgment his hands shall be liberated." In leaving

• It is a curious fact, that amniing to Girsidus Cambrensia, at a
general convocation of 9the clergy in Ireland, in 1170, the calamities
which the natives auffered were ascribed to their having been in the
practices!' buying slam from England, pirtly stolen, and partly sold
by their parents, and it was then ordained that all the English slaves in
Ireland should have their liberty.

Dffeount,
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