7 - ‘Satan's Wretched Slaves’: Indian Society and the Evangelical Imagination

Summary

In laying the varied but momentous topics contained in this volume before a British public, the author's avowed intention is, to awaken our national sympathies on behalf of the victims and devotees of superstition, whose cause he pleads. Some years since, a few powerful voices roused the slumbering energies of Britain to survey the horrors of the slave trade. In favour of the injured Africans, petitions assailed the legislature from every quarter and, in the memorable year of 1807; the death warrant of this abominable traffic was signed. The shriek of the Hindoo widow from the burning pile, the imploring groans of the afflicted about to be plunged into the Ganges, and the expiring sighs of the miserable victims perishing beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, though uttered in India, are heard in Britain, and solicit the generous aid which Africa experienced at her hands. The cause which the author advocates has a claim upon British humanity and justice scarcely inferior to that which Wilberforce pleaded in the senate, Granville Sharp in our courts of justice, and Clarkson before a sympathizing public, and if followed up with the same spirit of serious perseverance, there can be little doubt that it will ultimately be crowned with similar success.

Imperial Magazine 11 (1829), p. 460