ENGLAND'S SLAVERY, OR BARBADOS MERCHANDISE; Represented In a Petition to the High and Honourable Court of Parliament, by Marcellus Rivers and Oxenbridge Foil Gentlemen, on the behalf of themselves and threescore and ten more Freeborn Englishmen sold (uncondemned) into slavery: Together with Letters written to some Honourable Members of Parliament. Exodus 26.1. 21.16. And, God spoke all these words, saying, He that stealeth a man and selleth him, Or if he be found in his hand, He shall surely be put to death. LONDON, Printed in the Eleventh year of England's Liberty. 1659. To the Honourable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses assembled in Parliament, the Representative of the Freeborn People of England: The humble Petition of Marcellus Rivers, and Oxenbridge Foil Gentlemen, aswell on behalf of themselves, as of threescore and ten more, Freeborn People of this Nation, now in slavery. Humbly showeth, THat your distressed Petitioners, and the others became prisoners at Exeter and Ilchester in the West, upon pretence of the Salisbury Rising, in the end of the year 1654. although many of them never saw Salisbury, or bore arms in their lives, and your Petitioners and divers of the others were picked up, as they traveled upon their lawful occasions. Afterwards upon an Indictment preferred against your Petitioner Rivers, Ignoramus was found, your Petitioner Foil never being indicted, and all the rest, were either quitted by the Jury of life and death, or never so much as tried or examined; yet your Petitioners and the others, were all kept prisoners by the space of one whole year, and then on a sudden (without the least preparation) snatched out of their prisons (the greatest number by the command and pleasure of the then high Sheriff Copleston, and others in power in the County of Devon, and driven through the streets of the City of Exon (which is witness to this truth) by a guard of horse and foot, none being suffered to take leave of them, and so hurried to Plymouth, aboard the ship, john of London, Captain john Cole Master, where after they had lain on shipboard fourteen days, the Captain hoist sail, and at the end of five weeks, and four days more, anchored at the Isle Barbados, in the West Indies, being (in sailing) four thousand and five hundred miles distant from their native country, wives, children, parents, friends, and all that is near and dear unto them, the captive Petitioners and the others being all the way kept locked under decks (and guards) amongst horses, that their souls through heat and steam, (under the Tropic) fainted in them, and never till they came to the Island, knew, whether they were going. Being sadly arrived there, on the 7. of May 1656. the Master of the ship sold your miserable Petitioners & the others, the generality of them to most in humane and barbarous persons, for 1550. pound weight of Sugar apiece, (more or less, according to their working faculties,) as the goods and chattels of Martin Noel, and Major Thomas Alderne of London, and Captain Henry Hatsell of Plymouth, neither sparing the aged of threescore and sixteen years old; nor Divines, nor Officers, nor Gentlemen, nor any age or condition of men, but rendered all alike in this most insupportable Captivity, they now generally grinding at the Mills attending the Fornaces, or digging in this scorching Island, having nothing to feed on (notwithstanding their hard labour,) but Potato Roots, nor to drink but water, with such roots mashed in it, (besides the bread and tears of their own afflictions) being bought and sold still from one Planter to another, or attached as horses and beasts for the debts of their masters, being whipped at their whipping-posts, as Rogues, for their master's pleasure, and sleep in sties worse than hogs in England, and many other ways made miserable, beyond expression or Christian imagination. Humbly your Petitioners do remonstrate on behalf of themselves and the others, their most deplorable (and as to Englishmen unparallelled,) condition, and earnestly beg, since they are not under any pretended conviction of Law, that this high and honourable Court will be pleased to examine this arbitrary power, and to question by what warrant, so great a breach is made upon the free People of England, they having never seen the faces of those their pretended owners (Merchants that deal in slaves and souls of men) nor ever hearing of their names before Master Cole made Affidavit in the office of Barbados, that he sold them as their goods. But whence they derived their authority for the sale and slavery of your poor Petitioners and the rest, they are wholly ignorant to this very day. That this high Court will be further pleased, to interest their power for the redemption and reparation of your distressed Petitioners and the rest; or if the names of your Petitioners, and number of the rest, be so inconsiderable as not to be worthy Relief, or your tender compassion, yet at least, that this Court will be pleased on behalf of themselves, and all the Freeborn people of England, by whose suffrages they sit in Parliament, (any of whose cases it may be next) whenever a like force shall be laid on them, to take course to curb the unlimited power under which the Petitioners and the others suffer, that neither you nor any of their Brethren, upon these miserable terms, may come into this place of torment, a thing not known amongst the cruel Turks, to sell and enslave these of their own Country and Religion, much less the Innocent. These things being granted as they hope, their grieved souls shall pray, etc. Marcellus Rivers. Oxenbridge Foil. The Copy of a Letter, written, to a Noble Person, in Parliament. My most noble Lord; I Beseech your Lordship's pardon, for this rude approach of a Slave, One of those many mentioned in the Slaves Petition to the Parliament, thrown together, out of this, (sometime free and noble) Nation of England, and obscurely buried alive in the disconsolate vault, the Protestants Purgatory, Barbados, whence I am escaped, I cannot say free, but rather, as one brought over in a Coffin, out of which I may not peep, until the protection of this Parliament unlock it, and say, Arise Freeman and walk; In the mean time, I account myself, equally miserable with my fellow sufferers left behind, who do all unanimously by me cry unto your Lordship and to all the members of your great Assembly, (the Assertors of England's Freedom) in the words of the Souls under the Altar, Quousque Domine, quousque? They are now become Prisoners indeed, and Slaves of hope, looking upon this great body, (made up of so many generous souls) to be the Angel of their Deliverance, and humbly beg your Lordship vigorously to prosecute the Restitution of poor England's freedom. They look upon themselves as least concerned in this great business (though sufficiently miserable) being but a poor handful compared to England's multitude: the Lot is cast upon them to be whipped, as ('tis said) other youths are, in the presence of young Princes; That they may be sensible, of the smart due to themselves, (and which they may expect, if they will not learn their books better,) And if our Torment will but make this Princely Assembly look about them, and in us, as in a lookingglass, to behold the face of their own Condition, they will certainly find, that 'tis but hodie mihi, & cras Tibi, & can promise themselves no longer freedom from our Condition, than they continue members of the People's Representative: For the House being once dissolved, they are exposed to a possibility, (I may not say a probability) of the like violence, Parliament-protection only makes the difference; Else, my Lord, for aught I know, I ought to be as free from being the goods and chattels of Martin Noel and Henry Hatsel, (for Thomas Aldern that had the thirds of us, hath already, (I hear) given an account of his unrighteousness to a greater Tribunal) as any man, though he might have been once a member of Parliament; For I never made any contract with them, nor do I know whether there be such persons, or whether the Master of the ship used their names sictitiously, as Lawyers do formally, john Anokes and john Astiles: My Lord I do not go about to conceal that I was sometime an unworthy Officer in the late King's Army: But this I affirm, I was never in any military Action, since we were disbanded upon Articles at Truro in Cornwall in the end of the year 1644. Indeed I have had my share in the suffering part since, upon jealous suggestions and false surmises: After that disbanding, I have also had the benefit and protection of an Act of Oblivion from the Parliament, and further being upon unjust pretences indicted as a Traitor at Exon in the West in 1655, I was there by the grand Jury of the County of Devon, pronounced Innocent, by their Ignoramus, and so declared in form of Law; And if neither the Artiticles of a Victorious Army, nor the Act of Oblivion of an English Parliament, nor the formality of a Trial by a jury, and the Declaration of Law make us Innocent, and preserve us ftom being sold for Slaves, whence shall we expect freedom. My Lord your spacious soul, can certainly never undertake a more charitable Office, then to endeavour the Redemption of the Innocent Slaves at Barbados, and the prevention of the further slavery of England. (Our case, is but your Touchstone, by which you may discover whether English, be Slaves or Freemen,) which I humbly beg you Lordship to be zealous in, I can only pray for your Lordship's good success, & hearty subscribe myself, to be, (as far as without my pretended Owners consent, I can promise) My Lord, Your Lordships humble and faithful Servant. A Copy of a second Letter written to another worthy Member of Parliament. Sir, HAving had former Experience of your goodness, and having been eased by your hand, upon my Letter, when I was heretofore under some oppression (though of nothing so high a nature as now, being with some scores more of freeborn English men, sold into slavery,) That gives me the confidence, & you the trouble of this second Letter, though you cannot now, (as then) singly help me, yet in conjunction with others, of your great Assembly, (all inclined for the freedom of the people) I hope you will further mine and all the others liberties, who are now Slaves at Barbados, and Petitioners at your Bar; For if this man-stealing trade hold good, that all they that were at the Salisbury Rising shall be sold to the Indies for Slaves, because they were there; And all those too, that were not at the Salisbury Rising, shall be also sold thither, because they were not there; which is the case of a great number of the Petitioners who never either saw Salisbury, or heard of that Rising, nor knew why they were committed to Prison, yet found themselves indicted for treason, and being thereupon quitted by the jury of life & death, which is the case of Augustine Greenwood and Nicholas Broadgate (two of the Petitioners) to my knowledge, (whatever more of that petitioning number were so quitted, which I do not remember) are notwithstanding that acquitment enslaved: If this be allowed, an easy understanding will quickly find, what must necessarily become, of all the (formerly free) People of England: And these Merchants of men shelter themselves, and hope to continue hidden from the punishment of their Iniquities, and to continue and increase England's slavery, by an unheard of wile, which unless this brave Assembly of Parliament do wisely look into, and vigorously stand to their own, and the People's preservation; They themselves, may chance to be cheated of lives, liberties and estates. And the Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, by this law, (or rather lawfulness) will in time, not be spared by these West Indian spirits; though they begin with Country Gentlemen and others, as a more private and silent thing: These subtle Sophisters, do not seem to be so impudent, as publicly to establish Iniquity by a Law, for that the free People would perceive, (and at least murmur at, though they might not be able to help) But these use the way of a more sly violence, and pick up free People travelling upon their occasions, and take others out of their houses upon pretences of public justice, and so do piously shelter their own private and profitable malice, of the former number. I believe the greatest part, (if not all) of the Petitioners were, (amongst whom, is not any one condemned person) but that's no matter, they were as proper men as those taken in Arms at Southmoulton, and some of them of better trades, and so would prove more profitable Commodities, and yield more Sugar, than those Gentlemen, that could not work so lustily) But I'll instance but in one taken out of his house, (though I could name more) there was one Master Diamond, a Devonshire Gentleman, (as proper as ancient) being at his sale, threescore and sixteen years of age, he was taken up at Tiverton, (where he dwelled) and the greatest offence, that they accused him guilty of, (for aught I could ever hear) was, that when Sir joseph Waggstaffe, and the party, came through that town, and the poor old Gentleman, wondering to see, so unexpectedly, so many gallant men, travelling together, asked who they were, and 'twas answered, Cavaliers. Marry, said he, (as they pretend) they are very brave Gentlemen, were I, as young as I have been, I would go along with them, whither he said so or no, God knows, I know not, but that was all they had to allege against him, which they never went about to prove, though he were kept prisoner a whole year, most of the time in the inner prison, of the common Goal, amongst the felons and murderers, from which the high Goal of Exon, is never free, and the rest of the time, in a Room in straw, amongst three or fourscore Prisoners more; and he was so far from being indicted, that he was never, (I am confident) so much as examined by a justice of Peace; and yet was this good old Gentleman ravished away with the rest of us, from the bosom of the wife of his youth, and from the youthful, (but now unhappy) Children of their aged Parents, and notwithstanding his age and Innocence (for it might have been charitably looked upon as an effect of his doteage, though he should have said as dangerous words, (as had I wished, comes to) be; this aged Gentlemen was driven on shipboard, the grave Matron his wife, and their dutiful children. (Having first made application (but in vain) to the inexorable High Sheriff) followed him with their affectionate tears, and heart-breaking groans, a● far as Plymouth, but could never see him, so much as to take leave of him but sent to him on shipboard, to let him know, that they were come thither to mourn with him at parting; but off from the shipboard, he might not pass, to salute his wife, and bless his children, though it had been to have saved his soul; and to him, he forbade them to come, upon his love and blessing, for fear they should make him yet more miserable, in being snatched away with him: thus was this ancient Gentleman thrown out of the Conversible world at best, (if not really into his grave,) then all the voyage, bemoaning himself, (to the great grief of all the rest,) as a miserable man, to be stolen away from his aged wife, of whose constant affections he had scores of years' experience, and who he feared would now break her heart for grief, and never be able to see her own home again. In this high agony of love, and grief, and fear, and danger, above all he was troubled, that he should go out of the world, leaving his poor Country, in this slavish condition, which he had so many years heretofore seen noble and free. Now Sir, if this be the liberty and privilege of the subject, so long promised us, the people of England are in but a sad condition. And if there be no redemption of us, already so enslaved by a tyrannical force, for whose service our masters have nothing under our hands to show, nor have we any thing under their hands to show, whether ever or never the term of our slavery shall end. Sir, I know it cannot but grieve your righteous soul, to hear of these afflictions of your Brethren, if this be not redressed, you know not how soon, the Citizens and Commons of London, whose Representative you are, may likewise be carried into the like sad captivity; to prevent which, methinks, since Petitions are voted the people's privilege, they should petition to the Parliament, (if not for our freedom, yet for themselves, that there may an Act pass to secure them, and all the free people of England, from this violent spiriting, lest they also upon these miserable terms, should be brought into this place of torment. Sir, I shall pray, that God will bless you, and all the great Assembly, in the preservation of England's Freedom, and rest, Sir, Your most obliged and faithful Servant. The Copy of a third Letter, written to another member of Parliament. Sir, THe great Report of your public spirit, and high asserting of the enslaved people of England's freedom gives me this confidence, to bemoan to you in particular, and to the great counsel of the whole nation in general, the misery of my own, (and of the many other slaves at Barbados) sad and to be pitied fate, for though we have never forfeited ourselves to the Law, by any guilt, yet, notwithstanding our innocency, by a strange mysterious riddle, a blustering power, furious as a stormy Harricane, blowing from all the points of the compass, (but fixed in none) are we hurried to the heathenish Indies, and are sold in the public market, as beasts, and become to all intents and purposes, like those our fellow-creatures that have no understanding, being bought and sold still, from master to master, or attached as their goods, by the process of their cruel creditors, so that he that hath a good master too day (for some such there are) may have a tyrant too morrow, that shall whip him at the whipping-post, as a revenge on his baffling debtor. Oh Sir, did this glorious nation, whose complacent and tender (mixed with a courageous) disposition, was wont to make them appear lovely, to all the nations of the world, ever think that this would have been the English Translation, of those Latin words, which are as a Proclamation throughout the earth, being so eminently written in capital Letters of gold. Over the place of the displaced statue of the late King Charles, upon the Royal Exchange, London, (the intelligible centre of Christendom,) Anno primo, libertatis Angliae restitutae. 1648. Sir, had these menstealers committed this horrid violence, before that publication of liberty, we might have had somewhat less cause to wonder at their felony (though cause enough,) being a thing unknown before in any part of the world, and which the Low-countrieses, Holland, and other free nations will not yet believe, though we should swear it unto them. Sir, I beseech you therefore to be instrumental towards the obtaining of a Committee (or some other Court) empowered for the hearing of the poor slaves, (whose Petition is already in your house) that so your servant, (for that title I would fain exchange for slave) may make all the points of their Petition appear true, by the testimony of able persons, upon their oaths, to which purpose your Petitioner desires the Parliaments protection of his person, which obtained, he shall be able to make good both in substance and circumstances the saddest relation of the most unparallelled breach upon England's freedom, that was yet ever committed since the Creation, and from which flavish condition I do earnestly beg, that you would use all your powers, (in a Parliamentary way) to redeem us, and to restore us once again, to our pristine condition of being men, and then shall I be able more properly to subscribe myself, (which now being not my own) I do presumptuously, Sir, Your most humble Servant. The Copy of a fourth Letter, written to another Member of Parliament. SIR, I Beseech you accept of my thanks, for your charitable and cheerful delivering of the Slaves Petition to the grand Committee of Grievances, which, I hear was not only discussed before them; but the next day solemnly debated in the House: Sir in this your gallant asserting of the Freedom of your Native Country, you have shown a Mosaical courage, that dare do so much towards the relieving of the oppressed English, from their (more then Egyptian) Taskmasters. Sir you cannot but know (I believe,) the truth of that part of the Petition which concerns the Ignoramus returned upon my Indictment the acquitment of Nicholas Broadgate by the jury of life and death, and the Innocency of all the rest of your Petitioners that were sent from Exeter: (for although Eight of the there condemned persons, were sent and sold with us, yet we have not intermixed them within our Petition; referring that to some other way of their own, or friends, (as time & opportunity shall permit.) Sir I believe also you have often heard from the sad and charitable Citizens of Exon, the Tragical history of our being barbarously driven thence, into the Land of our Captivity, with much like violence, I believe, as the Herd of swine were driven into the sea, and they needs must go that are so driven; when two foot soldiers and one horseman, all armed, were allotted to the guard of every two (intended) Slaves, the horseman riding between every Couple, and on each side of the paired Prisoners, a foot soldier guardant, beating some that came to pity us; and the Power imprisoning one for wishing, God bless us, thus they hurried us through the City: Being upon the Forlorn march, which continued three days; those few of us, which were allowed beds by the way, had a Guard of armed soldiers all night in the Room to guard us in our sleeps, lest we might make an escape in our dreams: and we were not suffered to write back this sad kind of usage, to our friends at Exon, lest it should appear too harsh a truth: the breathless prisoners having been stifled up, for a whole year, more than threescore, lying in a room all that while in straw together, were not able to march so lustily, as their high fed and furious drivers expected, yet being surbated and almost dead, through sorenosse of travelling, and fainting down through weariness, were thence cudgelled up again, by these unchristian Janissaries, more cruelly, than a merciful man would have beaten his rusty jade. Thus began our misery, and so we were brought on shipboard, where it continued, for we were all put under deck together, and locked down. On the same deck was a bulk-head (so called) or a partition boarded, we being kept on one side, and a main Guard of seamen on the other side of that bulk-head, through which were portholes made, and through them great guns, laden with case-shot, levelled against us, that so, if there should have been any rebellion under that tyranny (which any one or two rude fellows, against the consent of the rest, might seem to begin, if they had pleased, then might the Guard and Gunners more easily destroy us, which happily upon a jealousy (which was once amongst them,) they would have done, had not our provident and covetous owners (those merchants of Babylon, (taken care to bring us to a more profitable market, to secure which Vice Admiral Hatsell offered the Mr. of our ship, a state's man of war for his Convoy. In this voyage, so great oppression was laid upon us by our invisible Owners, that whereas every vicious servant which Bridewell and Newgate had vomited into that ship, had an Hamaka to sleep in, and keep him from the vermin, which amongst such a crew must inevitably swarm all the voyage, until the Extremity of heat (under the Tropic) destroy them, we were forced to lie on the bare hard boards, they refusing to let us to have so much as mats to ease our weary bones; though their Factor moved them, (or one of them) to allow it, and he would have disbursed the money. Being arrived at Barbados, we were there sold as Beasts, and made otherways miserable, beyond the power of my tongue or pen to express: From this brutish condition, Sir, if you please to set too your helping hand to free us, and looking upon us, as Beasts fallen into a ditch, will use your endeavour to help us out, 'tis such a piece of charity, as will be acceptable to God, and all good men. So the reward of the merciful attend you, for they shall receive mercy, I rest, Sir, Your most grateful and humble Servant. FINIS.