Reactions to the problem
of the slave trade
51
- ibid., Chap. 10. See Elbert Russell, The History of Quakerism, New York, 1942, on
all these points.
- 1769, IX. Letter from Dr Benjamin Rush to Barbeu-Dubourg.
- Vol. VIII, p. 235.
- Davis, op. cit., p. 213.
- Quoted by Davis, op. cit., p. 338.
- The title of his pamphlet is significant: Trade Preferred before Religion.. ., London,
1695.
- Davis, op. cit., p. 345.
- Hoxie N. Fairchild, Religious Trends in English Poetry, I. Protestantism and the Cult
of Sentiment, New York, 1939-49.
- Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, translated into French by Diderot in 1745 : '... the
eternal wisdom governing this universe has linked the personal interest of God's
creature to the overall good of his system, so that he cannot pass one by without
stepping aside from the other, or fail in his duty to his fellow-men without doing
harm to himself.'
- His System of Moral Philosophy dates from 1755. Sloane was the author of a History
of Jamaica, Atkins had published an account of a Voyage to Guinea and Brazil.. .,
London, 1735, in which he depicted the atrocities of the slave trade.
- System of Moral Philosophy, II, p. 202 et seq.
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759; An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations, 1776.
- See Michèle Duchet, 'L'Idéologie Coloniale, la Critique du Système Esclavagiste',
Anthropologie et Histoire au Siècle des Lumières, Paris, 1971, I. 3.
- ibid., Discours quoted, p. 148-9.
- Dupont de Nemours, Ephémérides du Citoyen, VI, p. 216 et seq., 1771.
- Histoire... des Deux Indes, V, p. 266, Ed. Neuchatel, 1708.
- Ephémérides du Citoyen, VI, p. 180-1, 1771.
- See Duchet, op. cit., 'L'Anthropologie de Buffon', p. 278-9; 'L'Anthropologie de
Voltaire, p. 318-21. Racial prejudice in fact prevented Voltaire from going any
further.
- De l'Homme, Section VI, Chap. I.
- Essai sur les Moeurs, Chap. CXLIX, 1756.
- De l'Esprit, I, Chap. 3.
- Book XV, Chap. 5, 1748.
- Hence the use of irony which permitted an indirect attack, but had the drawback of
being understood only by the initiated. Even in the eighteenth century, several
noteworthy misconceptions confirm the 'aristocratic' nature of this form of argu-
ment which came to be interpreted as a justification of slavery.
- Vol. V, p. 275, et seq.
- See Duchet, op. cit., p. 142-3 and 155-6. These 'colonies' subsisted; they are now the
Boni, from the name of their leader, Bonnie.
- Instructions of 30 November 1771.
- Vol. VI.
- Vol. V, p. 288.
- E. D. Seeber, 'Humanism, Humanitism and Humanitarianism', Modern Language
Notes, XLIX, 1934. By the same author, see Anti-slavery Opinion in France during
the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press,
- Histoire des Deux Indes, Vol. V, p. 288.
