drowned in their passage to the slave ships, and whose bodies are washed ashore by the swelling tide, once more cry against us. But the bitter cries that are heard on boar( those floating tombs of gasping humanity on the mighty deep, by the hundreds who are starved below the decks, anc the sum total of misery endured by those who live to reach the opposite continent, are known only to God himself!"
Formed with the same capacity of pain,
The same desire of pleasure and of ease.
Why feels not man for man? When nature shrinks
From the slight puncture of an insect's sting.
Faints, if not screened from sultry suns, and pines
Beneath the hardship of an hour's delay
Of needful nutriment; — when Liberty
Is prized so dearly, that the slightest breath
That ruffles but her mantle, can awake
To arm unwarlike nations, and can rouse
Confed'rate states to vindicate her claims: —
How shall the suff'rer man his fellow doom
To ills he mourns or spurns at; tear with stripes
His quiv'ring flesh; with hunger and with thirst
Waste his emaciate frame; in ceaseless toils
Exhaust his vital powers; and bind his limbs
In galling chains! Shall he, whose fragile form
Demands continual blessings to support
Its complicated texture, air, and food,
Raiment, alternate rest, and kindly skies,
And healthful seasons, dare with impious voice
To ask those mercies, whilst his selfish aim
Arrests the general freedom of their course,
And, gratified beyond his utmost wish.
Debars another from the bounteous store!
