[6][7] He was drawn into controversy by the views of James Ramsay, expressed in An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies of 1784;[8] and published a number of works: Tobin was addressed personally by Ramsay in A Letter to James Tobin, Esq., late member of His Majesty's Council in the island of Nevis (1787).
He replied in:[12] The 1786 Essay on Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species by Thomas Clarkson deals with Tobin as the "Cursory Remarker".
[15] In 1787, Ottobah Cugoano responded to a number of authors defending enslavement, including Tobin, in Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.
[16] Olaudah Equiano replied to Tobin in 1788, in The Public Advertiser, attacking two of his pamphlets, and also a related book from 1786 by Gordon Turnbull.
[17][18] Hector Macneill wrote positively about Tobin's Cursory Remarks in his Observations on the Treatment of the Negroes in Jamaica (1788).