A Discourse on our Obligation to Thanksgiving, for the Prospect of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade. With a prayer. Delivered in the church of Jedburgh on April 15.

SOMERVILLE, Thomas.

Edité par Kelso: printed, at the Union Press, by J. Palmer, 1792

A propos de cet article

First edition of this abolitionist sermon, published to celebrate the resolution of the House of Commons to abolish the slave trade after a period of six years, giving a powerful argument against slavery on religious grounds, and presenting a vision of a new relationship between Europe and Africa. Somerville (1741-1830) was a Church of Scotland minister in Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. He supported abolition, and prior to the House of Commons resolution had obtained the consent of the Synod of Merse and Teviotdale to present a petition to Parliament for the end of the trade. Many of the key figures in the abolition campaign in Scotland were church ministers, and meetings and petitions depended heavily on the facilities and support of the Kirk at various levels (Whyte, p. 74). Somerville considered the resolution as the final victory, rectifying the great evil of the time: "I consider this event as a deliverance to our own nation in particular; a deliverance from an accession to the most unprovoked oppression, and the most outrageous cruelties, committed by any nation at any period, since the world began. It will certainly be considered by posterity as one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the history of the human race, that such presumptuous iniquity has been tolerated without remonstrance; and that it has continued to exist among a people so far enlightened" (p. 3). Somerville argued the slave trade had marked Britain for divine retribution, which can now be avoided. He holds that abolition would allow Christianity to penetrate into Africa, and commends the recently launched scheme to settle former enslaved persons in Sierra Leone, which would serve as a model for a different relationship between Europeans and Africans. Though he would have preferred immediate abolition, he was persuaded the government had no intention nor capacity to delay it. In the event, the House of Lords reversed the House of Commons resolution, and the slave trade was not abolished in the British Empire until 1807. Somerville related in his autobiography how, in the context of the French Revolution, his sermon aroused anger: "A sermon I preached at this time on the subject was afterwards published by the suggestion of my friend Dr. Charters, but gave great offence to some of the gentlemen in the country, who uncharitably imputed it to those spreading seditious principles, which at that time were the occasion of just alarm to all the friends of order and peace" (Somerville, pp. 263-4). Somerville goes on to make clear that though his initial sympathies were with the French Revolution, he turned against it as the disorder and radicalism grew. ESTC T16232; Goldsmiths' 15406; not in Kress. Thomas Somerville, My Own Life and Times, 1741-1814, 1861; Iain Whyte, Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756-1838, 2006. Octavo. Original blue wrappers, stitched and uncut. Small paper fault to front wrapper and a few peripheral nicks, else a fine copy, partly unopened.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A Discourse on our Obligation to Thanksgiving, for the Prospect of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade. With a prayer. Delivered in the church of Jedburgh on April 15.
• Éditeur: Kelso: printed, at the Union Press, by J. Palmer, 1792
• Édition: Edition originale