Gazette Of The United States

EXTRACT from Dr. HENRY's HISTORY.

"SLAVES still continue to be a capital article, both in the internal and foreign trade of Britain. When an estate was conveyed from one proprietor to another, all the villains or slaves annexed to that estate were conveyed at the same time, and by the same deed. When any person had more children than he could maintain, or more domestic slaves than he chose to keep, he sold them to a merchant; who disposed of them either at home or abroad, as he found would be most profitable." It was a common vice, (says Giraldus Cambrensis) of the English when they were reduced to poverty, that rather than endure it patiently, they exposed their own children to sale. Many of these unhappy persons were carried into Ireland, and no doubt into other countries, and there sold. A strong law was made against this barbarous kind of commerce, in a great council held at St. Peter's, Westminster, A. D 1102. "Let no man, for the future, presume to carry on the wicked trade of selling men in markets, like brute beasts, which hitherto had been the common custom of England." But this law did not put an end to the trade in slaves. For in the great council held in Armagh, A. D. 1171, the whole clergy of Ireland, after having deliberated long concerning the cause of the calamities with which they were threatened, by the invasion of the English, at length agreed, that the great judgement had been inflicted upon them by the displeasure of God, for the sins of the people; particularly for their having bought so great a number of English slaves from merchants, pirates and robbers, and for detaining them still in bondage. They therefore decreed, That all the English slaves in the whole island of Ireland, should be immediately emancipated, and restored to their former liberty." History of England, vol, 6. p. 267, 268, 269.