...fellow-subjects," not merely an assault on a "status, which in all ages GOD has sanctioned," but also "extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion...and introduces into a much happier state of life." As Boswell poetically concluded, quoting from Gray's Elegy in a breathtaking display of moral earnestness...

...sharply marks his distance from his friend on this issue. 'To abolish a status, which in all ages GOD has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only...it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages' (Life, m, 2oo, 2o4). More generally, Boswell finds himself involved in scenes of subordination in a...

...of our fellow subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of which it saves from massacre or intolerable bondage in their...country; and introduces into a much happier state of life To abolish this trade would be," he added with a surrealistic extravagance, "to shut the gates of mercy...

...declaration, Boswell added a humanitarian rationalization: To abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves...

...Englishman Boswell said: "To abolish [slavery] . . . would be extreme cruelty to the African savage, a portion of whom it saves from massacre or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduced into a much happier life, especially now when their passage to the West Indies, and their...

...institution" is beneficial to its subjects. "To abolish a status," he writes, which in all ages GOD has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only...country, and introduces into a much happier state of life (156). Reeve's beliefs on the abolition of slavery, then, though mistaken, were quite conventional...

...structural similarity of such claims to past justifications of slavery: "[The abolition of slavery] would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a...and introduces into a much happier state of life." Citation ascribed to James Boswell and is given in M. Spiegel, The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal...

...branch of commercial interest ... to abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned and man continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable...would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages." And he trusts that the House of Lords will know how to dispose of the pernicious bill through their...