Wesley Corpus

5. And this equally concerns every gentleman that has an estate in our _American_ plantations: yea all Slave-holders of whatever rank and degree: seeing _men-buyers_ are exactly on a level with _men-stealers_. Indeed you say, “I pay honestly for my goods: and I am not concerned to know how they are come by”: nay but you are: you are deeply concerned to know they are honestly come by. Otherwise you are partaker with a thief, and are not a jot honester than him. But you know, they are not honestly come by: you know they are procured by means, nothing near so innocent as picking pockets, house-breaking, or robbery upon the high-way. You know they are procured by a deliberate series of more complicated villany, (of fraud, robbery and murder) than was ever practised either by Mahometans or Pagans: in particular by murders of all kinds; by the blood of the innocent poured upon the ground like water. Now it is _your_ money that pays the Merchant, and through him the Captain, and the _African_ butchers. _You_ therefore are guilty, yea principally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies and murders. You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion: they would not stir a step without _you_: therefore the blood of all these wretches, who die before their time, whether in the country or elsewhere, lies upon your head. _The blood of thy brother_, (for, whether thou wilt believe it or no, such he is in the sight of Him that made him) _crieth against thee from the earth_, from the ship, and from the waters. O, whatever it costs, put a stop to its cry before it be too late: instantly, at any price, were it the half of your goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness! Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy house, thy lands are at present stained with blood. Surely it is enough; accumulate no more guilt: spill no more the blood of the innocent! Do not hire another to shed blood: do not pay him for doing it! Whether you are a Christian or no, shew yourself a man! Be not more savage than a lion or a bear!