Majesty from attending to the sufferings for which I plead.
Yet I do not solicit your royal pity for my own distress; my sufferings, although numerous,
are in a measure forgotten. I supplicate your Majesty's compassion for millions of my African
countrymen, who groan under the lash of tyranny in the West Indies.
The oppression and cruelty exercised to the unhappy negroes there, have at length reached
the British Legislature, and they are now deliberating on its redress; even several persons of property
in slaves in the West Indies, have petitioned Parliament against its continuance, sensible that it is as
impolitic as it is unjustand what is inhuman must ever be unwise.
Your Majesty's reign has been hitherto distinguished by private acts of benevolence and
bounty, surely the more extended the misery is, the greater claim it has to your Majesty's compassion,
and the greater must be your Majesty's pleasure in administering to its relief.
I presume, therefore, gracious Queen, to implore your interposition with your royal consort,
in favor of the wretched Africans; that, by your Majesty's benevolent influence, a period may now be
put to their misery—and that they may be raised from the condition of brutes, to which they are at
present degraded to the rights and situation of freemen, and admitted to partake of the blessings of
What figurative language is used ?