THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

Address allegedly authored by a woman. Shortly after An Answer was published,
Richard Hillier published A Vindication of an Address to the People of Great Britain, on
the Use of West India Produce. A Vindication has been included in Hogg’s bibliography
and is mentioned in the historiography of the abolitionist movement; however, historians
often omit Hillier’s subtitle, In Reply to a Female Apologist for Slavery. An Answer and
A Vindication each went through two editions. Read together these three tracts — An
Address to the People of Great Britain, An Answer to a Pamphlet, and A Vindication of
an Address — highlight the importance of the domestic world to the political campaign
against the slave trade.
The female apologist used sentimental diversion to argue against abstention from
West Indian sugar. A boycott against slave grown sugar, the female apologist argued,
would have a devastating effect on Britons. She described the British trade in slave-
grown sugar as a “vast and extensive branch of commerce.” Abstention would force
West Indian planters to find another market for their sugar and force thousands of British
businessmen into bankruptcy or prison. Moreover, the boycott would “effectually cramp
the spirit of industry and enterprise,” as the market for slave-grown sugar disappeared. In
her Answer, the female apologist made a careful distinction between support of slave-
produced goods and the slave trade. Aligning herself with the ascribed female qualities
of “humanity” and “Christian principles,” she denied that she supported the slave trade
just because she did not support the boycott. In a rather tortured discussion of scriptural
authority, the female apologist suggested that the availability of slave-produced goods in
the marketplace indicated a divine sanction of the consumption of such goods. She
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