Note 18 — Extract from an unpublished Poem on Freedom.
Reading edition
"Cheats his own nature and now generous grown, Dispenses realms and empires not his own."
Charles V. granted a patent to one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!—Hist. Slavery.
The crime of having first recommended the importation of African slaves into America, is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.—Life of Cardinal Ximenes.
They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.—Robertson.