CHAPTER III.
_Forerunners continued to 1787--divided from this time into four classes--First class consists principally of persons in Great Britain of various description--Godwyn--Baxter--Tryon--Southern--Primatt-- Montesquieu--Hutcheson--Sharp--Ramsay--and a multitude of others, whose names and services follow._ I have hitherto traced the history of the forerunners in this great cause only up to about the year 1640.

If I am to pursue my plan, I am to trace it to the year 1787.

But in order to show what I intend in a clearer point of view, I shall divide those who have lived within this period, and who will now consist of persons in a less elevated station, into four classes: and I shall give to each class a distinct consideration by itself.
Several of our old English writers, though they have not mentioned the African Slave-trade, or the slavery consequent upon it, in their respective works, have yet given their testimony of condemnation against both.

Thus our great Milton:-- "O execrable son, so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurpt, from God not given; He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation;--but man over men He made not lord, such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free." I might mention bishop Saunderson and others, who bore a testimony equally strong against the lawfulness of trading in the persons of men, and of holding them in bondage, but as I mean to confine myself to those, who have favoured the cause of the Africans specifically, I cannot admit their names into any of the classes which have been announced.
Of those who compose the first class, defined as it has now been, I cannot name any individual who took a part in this cause till between the years 1670 and 1680.

For in the year 1640, and for a few years afterwards, the nature of the trade and of the slavery was but little known, except to a few individuals, who were concerned in them; and it is obvious that these would neither endanger their own interest nor proclaim their own guilt by exposing it.