OCR Text |
Show ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE purpofes of traffick. The inll:ant determi• nation of the brothers, on the firll: light of the merchants, to fill him, and the immediate acq uie{cence of thefe, who purchafed him for a foreign market, prove that this commerce had been then ell:ablilhed, not only in that part of the country, where this tranf.~Cl:ion happened, but in that alfo, whither the merchants were then travelling with their camels, namely, lEgypt: and they {hew farther, that, as all cull:oms require time for their ell:ablilhment, fo it mull: have exill:ed in the ages, previous to that of Pharaoh ; that is, in thofe ages, in which we fixed the firll: date of involuntary fervitude. This commerce then, as appears by the prefent inll:ance, exill:ed in the earliell: praCtice• of barter, and had defcended to the }Egyptians, through as long a period of time, as was {ufficient to have made it, in the times alluded to, an ell:ablilhcd cull:om. Thus was }Egypt, in thofe days, the place of the greatell: refort; the grand emporium of trade, to which people were driving their merchandize, as to a centre; and thus did it afford, among other opportunities of traffick, the OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 33 the jitjlmarket that is recorded, for the fale of the human fpecies. This market, which was thus fupplied by the con11ant concourfe of merchants, who reforted to it from various parts, could not fail, by thefe means, to have been confiderable. It received, afterwards, an additional fupply from thofe piracies, which we mentioned to have exi11ed in the uncivilized ages of the world, and which, in fact, it greatly promoted and encouraged; and it became, from thefe united circumll:ances, fo famous, as to have been known, within a few centuries from the time of Pharaoh, both to the Grecian colonies in Alia, and the Grecian iflands. Homer mentions Cyprus and lEgypt as the common markets for flaves, about the times of the Trojan war. Thus Antinous, offended with Ulyffes, threatens to fend him to * one of thefe places, if he does not inll:antly depart from his table. The fame poet alfo, in his t hymn to Bacchus, mentions them • Mt) ;rl.'X.tt. '?JtX.p,)v A"l')''tr:r7ov ~ Krl?l'fO' IJ't,ttl. Hom. Odya: L. '7· 448. : L. z6. c again, |