The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African by Olaudah Equiano
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Olaudah Equiano >> The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African
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Tortures, murder, and every other imaginable barbarity and iniquity,
are practised upon the poor slaves with impunity. I hope the slave
trade will be abolished. I pray it may be an event at hand. The great
body of manufacturers, uniting in the cause, will considerably
facilitate and expedite it; and, as I have already stated, it is most
substantially their interest and advantage, and as such the nation's
at large, (except those persons concerned in the manufacturing
neck-yokes, collars, chains, hand-cuffs, leg-bolts, drags,
thumb-screws, iron muzzles, and coffins; cats, scourges, and other
instruments of torture used in the slave trade). In a short time one
sentiment alone will prevail, from motives of interest as well as
justice and humanity. Europe contains one hundred and twenty millions
of inhabitants. Query--How many millions doth Africa contain?
Supposing the Africans, collectively and individually, to expend 5l. a
head in raiment and furniture yearly when civilized, &c. an immensity
beyond the reach of imagination!
This I conceive to be a theory founded upon facts, and therefore an
infallible one. If the blacks were permitted to remain in their own
country, they would double themselves every fifteen years. In
proportion to such increase will be the demand for manufactures.
Cotton and indigo grow spontaneously in most parts of Africa; a
consideration this of no small consequence to the manufacturing towns
of Great Britain. It opens a most immense, glorious, and happy
prospect--the clothing, &c. of a continent ten thousand miles in
circumference, and immensely rich in productions of every denomination
in return for manufactures.
I have only therefore to request the reader's indulgence and conclude.
I am far from the vanity of thinking there is any merit in this
narrative: I hope censure will be suspended, when it is considered
that it was written by one who was as unwilling as unable to adorn the
plainness of truth by the colouring of imagination. My life and
fortune have been extremely chequered, and my adventures various. Even
those I have related are considerably abridged. If any incident in
this little work should appear uninteresting and trifling to most
readers, I can only say, as my excuse for mentioning it, that almost
every event of my life made an impression on my mind and influenced my
conduct. I early accustomed myself to look for the hand of God in the
minutest occurrence, and to learn from it a lesson of morality and
religion; and in this light every circumstance I have related was to
me of importance. After all, what makes any event important, unless by
its observation we become better and wiser, and learn 'to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God?' To those who are
possessed of this spirit, there is scarcely any book or incident so
trifling that does not afford some profit, while to others the
experience of ages seems of no use; and even to pour out to them the
treasures of wisdom is throwing the jewels of instruction away.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote X: See the Public Advertiser, July 14, 1787.]
[Footnote Y: At the request of some of my most particular friends, I
take the liberty of inserting it here.]
[Footnote Z: Grenville Sharp, Esq; the Reverend Thomas Clarkson; the
Reverend James Ramsay; our approved friends, men of virtue, are an
honour to their country, ornamental to human nature, happy in
themselves, and benefactors to mankind!]
THE END.
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