Guinea Voyage

The Guinea Voyage by James Field Stanfield

The bulk of the Guinea Voyage is told in verse, with some prose at the end. The theme is that slave voyages  were inhumane. The crew were treated horribly. The conditions were deplorable and they essentially had to sign their lives away before going on these slave voyages. And the condition of the crew was better than the conditions of the slaves. They were treated as less than human - possibly even less than animals would be treated. The author deplored slavery and saw the conditions of the slave trade as something awful.

The Important Trial of Thomas Spence

The Important Trial of Thomas Spence by Thomas Spence

Thomas Spence was tried and convicted for publishing "revolutionary" texts. Today, we would hardly bat an eye at most of his concepts. He supported divorce (as a way in making marriage better.) He also advocated land reform. He would have local government units own the land. The revenue of the units would be from the rent paid by those who worked the land. The book includes his complete constitution. It included a form of representation as well as speech protection and law enforcement. His radical texts were too much for 200 years ago. Today, the work can be found on Marxist web sites. Conditions have changed today. However, if you consider the rents to be "property tax", it is not too far from what we have today. (Though without restrictions on multiple ownership.)