[Gutenberg 52820] • Thoughts on Slavery and Cheap Sugar / A Letter to the Members and Friends of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society

Thoughts on Slavery and Cheap Sugar - Anti-Slavery Society - A Letter To the Members and Friends of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society - By James Ewing Ritchie.... Eleven years have passed away since, at an enormous cost, slavery was abolished in the British dominions. The day that witnessed the act is one memorable in the annals of our country. It stands out conspicuously, and throws into the shade much over which the Christian and the patriot cannot choose but mourn. All honour be given to the men by whom it was carried. Let the fame and name of such benefactors of their race as Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, ever live fresh and fair in the remembrances of an admiring posterity. Theirs be the praise due to all who, through good and bad report, in faith and sincerity, give battle for the right, when weaker men are cowed down by might; and glorious is it to know that the words they spoke had in them life and power-that they reached the heart of England's millions, so that the cry for justice to the sons of Africa was borne as by the winds of heaven over the length and breadth of this thickly-peopled isle, and was heard in morning light and evening's shade, when man went forth to his work, or when he rested from the labours of the day, till at length Great Britain washed her hands of the stain she had contracted by her sanction of the accursed traffic in flesh and blood, and proclaimed freedom and manhood to the slave.