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A74697 Englands slavery, or Barbados merchandize; represented in a petition to the high court of Parliament, by Marcellus Rivers and Oxenbridge Foyle gentlemen, on behalf of themselves and three-score and ten more free-born Englishmen sold (uncondemned) into slavery: together with letters written to some honourable members of Parliament. Rivers, Marcellus. 1659 (1659) Wing R1553; Thomason E1833_3; ESTC R209821 8,563 23

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ENGLANDS SLAVERY OR BARBADOS MERCHANDIZE Represented In a Petition to the High and Honourable Court of Parliament by Marcellus Rivers and Oxenbridge Foyle Gentlemen on the behalf of themselves and threescore and ten more Free-born English-men sold uncondemned into slavery Together with Letters written to some Honourable Members of Parliament Exodus 26.1 21.16 And God spake 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 Englands Liberty 1659. To the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses assembled in Parliament the Representative of the Free-born People of England The humble Petition of Marcellus Rivers and Oxenbridge Foyle Gentlemen aswell on behalf of themselves as of threescore and ten more Free-born People of this Nation now in slavery Humbly sheweth THat your distressed Petitioners and the others became prisoners at Exceter 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 pickt up as they travelled upon their lawfull occasions Afterwards upon an Indictment preferred against your Petitioner Rivers Ignoramus was found your Petitioner Foyle never being indicted and all the rest were either quitted by the Jury of life and death or never so much as tryed 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 snatcht 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 witnesse 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 Iohn of London Captain Iohn Cole Master where after they had lain on ship-board fourteen dayes the Captain hoised sail and at the end of five weeks and four dayes more anchored at the Isle Barbados in the West Indies being in sailing four thousand and five hundred miles distant from their native countrey wives children parents friends and all that is near and dear unto them the captive Petitioners and the others being all the way kept lockt under decks and guards amongst horses that their souls through heat and steam under the Tropick 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 lesse 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 rendred 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 Potatoe Roots nor to drink but water with such roots masht 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 whipt at their whipping-posts as Rogues for their masters pleasure and sleep in styes worse then hogs in England and many other wayes 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 English-men unparallel'd 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 Free-born 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 tearms may come into this place of torment a thing not known amongst the cruell Turks to sell and enslave these of their own Countrey and Religion much lesse the Innocent These things being granted as they hope their grieved souls shall pray c. Marcellus Rivers Oxenbridge Foyle The Copie of a Letter written to a Noble Person in Parliament My most noble Lord I Beseech your Lordships 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 untill the protection of this Parliament unlock it and say Arise Freeman and walk In the mean time I account my self 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 Englands Freedome 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 Englands freedome They look upon themselves as least concerned in this great businesse though sufficiently miserable being but a poor handfull compared to Englands multitude the Lot is cast upon them to be whipt as 't is said other youths are in the presence of young Princes That they may be sensible