WHO WAS CARRIED OFF FROM ABERDEEN, AND SOLD FOR A SLAVE.

CONTAINING

-The History of the Author's surprising Adventures in North America.

-His Captivity among the Indians, and the manner of his escape.

-The Customs, Dress, &customs of the Savages.

Military Operations in that quarter

-A Description of the British Settlements, & country.

WITH: An Account of the Proceedings of the Magistrates of Aberdeen against him on his Return to Scotland; a Brief History of his Process against them before the Court of Session; and a short Dissertation on Kidnapping.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN ESSAY ON THE ILLEGALITY OF KIDNAPPING AND THE SLAVE TRADE.

A NEW EDITION.

ABERDEEN: PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS 1826.

Aberdeen: Printed by K. Cobban £ Co.

[Written for the 1826 edition, by an unknown author]

"He who reads the life of Peter Williamson will find it fraught with much useful instruction. The language in which it is narrated is a sufficient proof that its author was no designing man, who intended to impose on the credulity of the vulgar, and satiate their appetite for the marvellous, by the ac-count of his sufferings. Were not the facts sufficiently vouched for, we would almost suppose that, while reading his hair-breadth escapes, we were perusing some tale of romance, or the fanciful production of some ingenious novelist. But the tale is too true; the crime of kidnapping made more sufferers than Williamson, and Aberdeen was not the only place disgraced by this horrible traffic.

It is useless—it is worse than useless—it is absolutely criminal to argue, that children of nine or ten years of age were able to indent[ure] themselves, and to implement articles of agreement which were never meant to be fulfilled—nay, where personal liberty is concerned, even although the person had arrived at the years of maturity, it is a right which he could neither give nor sell: in corroboration of this I shall adduce the opinion of the celebrated Rousseau, in his treaty on the Social Compact, he thus writes, "To renounce one's personal liberty is to renounce one's very being as a man: it is to renounce not only the rights but also the duties of humanity. And what possible indemnification can be made to the man who thus gives up his ail ? Such a remuneration is incompatible with our very nature: for to deprive us of the liberty of will, is to take away all morality from our actions. In a word, a convention which, on the one part stipulates absolute authority, and on the other implicit obedience, is in itself futile and contradictory?"

Such then is a just view of those indentures for life, which were held out by the kidnappers as just and lawful. But here let us observe, that their crime assumes a blacker die when we take into consideration the circumstance that these indentures were never pro-posed until they had actual possession of the bodies of their victims; it matters not how this possession was obtained, whether by cajoling artifices, or absolute violence, they were in durance, and no opposition would have availed, nor would resistance have frustrated the designs of their enslavers.

When the prisoners were landed in Virginia on Carolina, they discovered their true situation: driven like beasts of burden to a market place, they were exposed for sale, and given accordingly to the highest bidder, let his character or principles be what they may. Think, reader, for a moment, that your brother, the companion of your sports, the friend of your heart, one night disappeared and was seen no more — that the grief and sorrow of your parents were bringing them fast to the grave; and that, though years might roll, they brought no tidings of their lost child ; and that their last prayers were breathed for the ever-lost boy. And this was many a brother's— many a parent's lot. Or did chance, at some long future period, bring the doubtful intelligence that he was alive on some far distant shore — a mother's heart would yearn, and a father's grief would be in vain supprest — they would mourn for the living as the dead— to them he would be dead; and, dreading, doubting, hoping, they would die, with the sad, yet consoling anticipation, that a few years after and they would embrace their child in that happy land where oppressors could no more part them, but where; God the Lord would wipe ail tears from their eyes.''

One thought more on this subject, those who were kidnapped were persons who, having felt the blessings of liberty, would therefore be more susceptible of the horrors of slavery; they were fit for the enjoyment of a state of liberty by education and by birth, and the awful novelty of being slaves would therefore present itself to their view in its most aggravated form. All their high hopes would be crushed, all their youthful day-dreams would vanish as airy phantoms, and the cruel reality of their hopeless situation would mock ail their fancied prospects of future worldly bliss. Well may we congratulate ourselves that these days hare gone bye, and that no oppressor, however rich and powerful, can devote us at the ALTAR of SLAVERY.

It would be well if we could say as much of every class of subjects. There is a race whose only crime is their complexion, and whose only vice is their want of education — a want which their iron-hearted oppressors will not allow to be supplied — and this race is liable to tenfold greater calamities than did ever befall our infatuate fellow-citizens of Aberdeen, even when the practice of kidnapping was carried on in its most villainous extent. The slaves in the West Indies—for it is to them we allude—are the objects of the sympathy of Christendom. Already have the most of its states declared the crime of man-stealing to be piracy, and therefore punishable with death; but still the nefarious traffic is pursued, and in spite of the vigilance evinced by our cruizers, thousands are dragged from their homes to wear out a listless life of dreary solitude. In vain are laws enacted when interest and prejudice so strongly warp the minds of the planters, that justice and morality are excluded, and rapine and oppression necessarily domineer in their breasts.

It has been often argued that the slaves in the West Indies are not the victims of oppression, that they are well treated, and, in many cases, that they live more comfortably than our artisans do at home. This has been particularly insisted on by Williams, in his “History of Twenty Years'' Residence in Jamaica, a work lately published. But the honour of humanity has not been vindicated by this work, publisheel, as it seems to have been, to serve the interests of the planters, when the united experience of good men has hitherto controverted this point; and granting that it were the case that the slaves were well treated, what does it bear against the general argument ? Nothing at all; for it will not matter whether the chain with which he is fettered be made of iron or of gold, it is equally strong. The wretch who is secured with a silken cord is as much a prisoner as he who is bound with hemp. But the dawn of brighter days is at hand, and the march of Freedom will, it is to be hoped, soon overtake our hapless brother-men. To return to the life of Williamson, one additional circumstance maybe mentioned, which is not recorded in the book; namely, that the Magistrates of Aberdeen once intended to appeal to the House of Lords. The Earl of Findlater, who was then patron of the city, justly thought that the magistrates had been to blame in prosecuting Williamson for having committed the crime of telling the truth; and knowing well that to carry the process farther would be but to promulgate their own disgrace, the process was abandoned ; while, to lighten the expenses which had devolved upon them, he, as Judicial-Admiral, conferred upon the magistrates the salvages arising from such vessels as might be thrown ashore or wrecked near Aberdeen.

It is to be hoped that all who shall peruse this volume, while they sympathize with the sufferer, will, at the same time, think on the many thousand sufferers in the West Indies, and use their humble endeavour, in as far as they can, to lighten the load which their black brothers are doomed to endure.