Posts Tagged Christianity
Setting the captives free
Posted by James Gubb in Civil Liberty on 27/03/2007
The year is 1780. A sailing ship is ploughing through heavy seas across the Atlantic, loaded almost to the gunwales with a cargo of human beings. They are chained together on narrow shelves, soaked in sweat, blood, vomit and excrement.
In a smart London club, an elegant young graduate fresh from Cambridge is seated at the gambling table, delighting his friends with his wit and charm. From a business family and already an MP, he has a fortune behind him and a promising career ahead.
Who would imagine that these two worlds could have anything in common? Yet that young man was to become the principal instrument in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the bicentenary of which we celebrate this week, writes Dr Peter Heslam.
