Scriptural researches on the licitness of the slave-trade : shewing its conformity with the principles of natural and revealed religion, delineated in the sacred writings of the word of God / by the Rev. R. Harris. London : Printed for John Stockdale, opposite Burlington-house, Piccadilly, 1788.
Dedication: To the worshipful the Mayor, recorder, alderman, bailiffs, and loyal borough and corporation of Liverpool ...
Includes preface and advertisement: "It was the author's design ... to have concluded his researches with ... some Scriptural Directions for the proper treatment of Slaves ... but the shortness of the time ... having made it absolutely impossible ... he is obliged to offer it to the Public in its Present state."
Ms. notation on dedication page: Mr. Harris was a Spanish Jesuit who on the dissolution of the Society to which he belonged came to England & settled at Liverpool, where the merchants may be said to have bought him; for taking advantage of his extreme poverty they engaged him for a small sum of money in the following jejune blasphemy. They approved and circ ulated the work & afterward in the spirit of the slave trade they suffered the miserable author to starve to death, a wretched wharfinger in the very capital of their iniquitous traffic.
