It must, however, be confessed that it would have been strange if Leo, in his situation as pontiff, had made a different reply.

He could never have denied that God was no respecter of persons.

He must have acknowledged that men were bound to love each other as brethren; and, if he admitted the doctrine that all men were accountable for their actions hereafter, he could never have prevented the deduction that it was necessary they should be free.

Nor could he, as a man of high attainments, living early in the sixteenth century, have been ignorant of what had taken place in the twelfth; or that, by the latter end of this latter century, christianity had obtained the undisputed honour of having extirpated slavery from the western part of the European world.
From Spain and Italy I come to England.

The first importation of slaves from Africa, by our countrymen, was in the reign of Elizabeth, in the year 1562.