ABSTRACT
Raimundo Hormoza was a Spanish Jesuit resident in Liverpool who used the ‘nom de plume’ of The Rev Raymund Harris’ Harris had been expelled from Spain in 1767, and after living in various European countries he finally settled in Liverpool, where he set up a school for young gentlemen. The work is a symptom of the growing opposition to reform during the passage of Sir William Dolben’s Bill for restricting the number slaves a ship could carry in relation to its tonnage and the Privy Council’s investigation of the conditions of the trade in 1788. The essay is in three sections, the first argues for the conformity of the slave trade with the Law of Nature which covers the period of the scripture up to the Mosaic dispensation, the second part deals with the Law of Moses and the third with the New Testament.
