Permit me with the greatest deference and respect to lay at your feet the following genuine Narrative; the chief design of which is to excite in your august assemblies a sense of compassion for the miseries which the Slave-Trade has entailed on my unfortunate countrymen. By the horrors of that trade was I first torn away from all the tender connexions that were naturally dear to my heart; but these through the mysterious ways of Providence I ought to regard as infinitely more than compensated by the introduction I have thence obtained to the knowledge of the Christian religion and of a nation which by its liberal sentiments its humanity the glorious freedom of its government and its proficiency in arts and sciences has exalted the dignity of human nature.
Olaudah Equiano