Star.
London, England, 1822-08-31 00:00:00

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Mince—•l anode testise peculiar enormides which attend
the system of slavery amidst the exasperations of this cruel war=
rare; and as, in the religious view of the subject, I maintained
that all our national exertions for the progress of the Goil
were only as a drop in the ocean, when compared with the *it
of it extinguished by the delusive dominion of the Turks, so I
assert that the Negro Slave Trade was nothiss in the scale of
misery and debasement against the horrors which, during this
sanguinary contest, must continue for ever.
• • • •
" Such abominations seldom or never occurred in the Afriollk
Slave Trade, detestable as it was. The pies of necessity one,
for some time also so plausibly on its side, from the existence
of British property in equatorial latitudes, where no other la-
bour could be so readily obtained, that even a British Parlia
ment for a long time continued to sanction it, until the gladioli
spring-tide of humanity broke in, at last, like a tomato
sweeping away before it whatever interrupted its course. Bit
the slavery of the East, my Lord, never had anything to
cover the nakedness of its iniquity. The bulk of her slaves
were not for labour under suns which Europeans could not
endure, but principally for the odious purposes of voluptuovs
nese an lust, and aggravated as they now are amidst the
rage and bitterness of war, are attended with such brutal
and undescribable crimes, as, putting aside all Christian sympa-
thies, might make us blush that we are men. I feel, whilst I am
writing, that the ink must first have become blood, to enable me
fitly to express my detestation and abhorrence. It appears td
o
me, indeed, that the abolition of the slave trade which raise
this nation above all created beings since the beginning of the
world, cannot be said to be complete, not only whilst such mon-
strous abuses of slavery are predominant, but whilst any traffic
in human beings whatsoever is suffered to exist. When found
among savages, we can do no more than attempt to humanize
than, as we have always endeavoured to do; but when encou-
raged or publicly tolerated by any civilised natioo though Ido
not mean to assert it to be a cause of war, yet all such maims
ought to be rejected as allies.
When we abolished the African Slave Trade by Act of
Parliament, it could, in strictness, only apply to prohibit that
traffic by our own subjects ; but did we stop there on that ac-
count ? Did we consider our duty could not extend beyond our
own jurisdiction, as the utmost limit of positive law? No, my
Lord, to our immortal honour we did not; on the contrary, we
have ever since been exerting ourselves, with other nations, to
extinguish it throughout the world; and that able and excellent
man, Lord Lansdown, when he moved an Addre s
otto his Ma-
jesty on the subject, only a few weeks ago, did limit his
views to the promotion of amicable arrangements with friendly
States, but even extended them to the consideration of compel-
ling, by the common consent of those Govetaments that had
)ilsandoned it, any others which should continue to give it sane-

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t. Mn and support.
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0 It is objected that the Greeks are not less savagely cruel than
the Turks. I will not hear such a charge. The gentlest ani-
mals which Pasivtnexce has subjected to us, patient of labour,
and licking the benevolent hand that feeds them,whon maddened
with terror and goaded by barbarous oppression, will change on
a sudden all the characteristics of their original natures, and
overthrow everything in their course. To judge of what the
Greeks, under good Government, are capable of being, we have
only to loik back to what they have been. Their pedigrees, in
which we can trace so many great men, who never should have
died, ought to protect thena-front the Saracens, who cannot show
in all their escutcheons a single man who should have lived.
" Well, then, may we exclaim to such miscreants, in the len-

guage of Milton—
" Lift not thy spear against cite Muses' bower—
" The great CEmatitian conqueror bid spare
" The house of Pindarut, when temple and tower
" Went to the ground."
" But although I have thus e %:.eavoured, against my most
predominant feelings, to expel front my indignant view cruelties
by whomsoever commuted, and, in protection of the unfortu-
nate Greeks, have coveted them with the veil which our im-
perfect natures entitled me to throw over them; yet let it be
remembered, that what I have written concerning them, applies
only to unpremeditated inhumanity,, such as, when hunted like
wild beats, they have turned upon their pursuers, but that bar-
barous retaliations can receive no pardon if continued when they
are contending as a nation for their religion and freedom. I
rejoice that they are advanced to that condition, that they are
marshalling armies, that they are laying the foundations of
Civil Government, and I feel confident that they will hence-
forth remember that they are soldiers and Christians.
" That our influence could fail, if faithfully exerted, I cannot
bring my mind to believe. I might ask those who were the
warmest advocates for the war, and who hold the highest its
happy telmination, and the eminence on which it has placed us,
what. the would think if it could be doubted, that if we spoke
the word we should be obeyed ? The misfortune is, my Lord,
that we did not speak it at a time when many of the enormities
which have taken place, and for a long time must follow, might
have been averted ; and I fear chat we may now be under great
embarrassment iti holding a different course. lam convinced
that it has been entirely owing to the system which the Govern-
ments of Europe have too long been pursuing, that the great
with of humanity and justice has not long ago been complete;
and the only difficulty I can foresee 40 its instant accomplishment
is. that, perhaps, we ourselves must retrace some of our steps in
taking the lead to give it effect. Our alliance with the Porte
ought to have been long ago removed out of the way, as being
unworthy of the British Government and People; and without
contending that we should at once have resented by hostility
their monstrous iniquities, yet, if not a man in England were
prepared to second my opinion, I should assert that it would
have become us to withdraw our Ambassador from Constanti-
nople, and to reject such a banditti as one Allies. The King of
Great Britain ought not to be styled the Brother of the Sultan,
whilst the desolation of Scio and the butchery of the hostages
are unaton;d for. These authorised murders are not the acts of
a civilised nation. ' The voice of their blodd; like that of the
first victim of violence,' cries unto GOD out of the ground,' and
the judgment of Goa ought to be an example to the nations whis
worship him. Let them be fugitives and vagabonds upon the
earth.' • ••
• • •
" They who are disposed to consider the abatement of this
nuisaoce as an undertaking of great expense, difficulty, and dam.
gee cannot have sufficiently considered the progress which the
Greeks, though unassisted, have already made, and are hourly
making, to establish their own independence, nor with how little
assistance it might be completed. The only use, indeed, of au
immediate decisive force, would be to prevent, in the interval,
such an afflicting effusion of blood. Whoever is at all acquainted
with naval affairs, must be astonished at the courage and skill
with which their infant navies have been conducted, and parti-
culaly with the art and boldness of grappling as they did so
laudy the immense ship of the Turkish Pacha, and accomplish-
ing he destruction.
44 The very local situations of their conflicts, and the remem-
brance of the ancient deeds of the same people, is with me a
kind of prognostic of success. They are now; I believe, in the
citadel, as it is called, of Athens, and although it mustbe a posi-
tion of no strength, in the fallen condition of that once re-
Downed city, yet they may be animated by the sight of Salamis,
directly over -.zzir.:t them; and their sailors may be told how
'l'hemistocles, with a most insignificant force, drew the memo-
rable fleet of Xerxes into a narrow sea, where his large ships
could not be conducted, and utterly destroyed them ; a fleet
which, according to the historian, was the greatest then known
in the history of mankind, yet by such inadequate means over-
thrown.—' Nam pars modo apud Salamina parvo numero ma-
vium, maxima post hominum memoriam classis est devicta.'
" Marathon also is now directly within their view, only ten
miles before them, where Miltiades, instead of intreneling him-
self behind walls now in the dust, combated in the open plain
the Captain of Darius, with only a handful of Athenians, the fa-
thers of the present Greeks, obtained that immortal victory over
a hundred thousand men.—' Quo Fugue nulls mint unguent
tans exigua manus camas opts prostravh. •
" Signal successes in war, under distinguished Commanders,
are as likely t• overthrow the barbarians of the present day as
the barbarians of former times; and the rather because examples
bare such a powerful influence en all the exertions of mankind.
" My observations, my Lord, upon this afflicting 'Object, are
drawing fast to their close. It has been for some time no secret
that a Congress is to beheld upon the Continent, where the sub-
ject of the Greeks cannot but come under considered's, and
that we are to be represented at it by some Minister of State.
It was this which determined me, without a moment's delay, to
write and to publish this letter, because it would have been too
late to make any useful appeal to sour Lordship or the Public.
awe we had taken our part, and perhaps soncurred, ln mea-
sures which I could this only uselessly dissent from.
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