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Show 156 ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE " that if the flavery were fuch as has been " now reprefented, no human being could " poflibly fupport it long." Melancholy truth ! the wretched Africans generally periili in their prime Let them reflect upon the prodigious fupplies that are annually required, and their argument will be nothing lefs than a confeffion, that the flavery has been juil:Iy depiCled. They appeal next to every man's own reafon, and delire him to think ferioully, whether " felf-interefl: will not always re-firain the mafier from acts of cruelty to " the flave, and whether fuch accounts " therefore, as the foregoing, do not con" tain within themfclves, their own refu" tation." We anfwer, "No." For if this refiraining principle be as powerful as it is imagined, why does not the general conduCl of men alford us a better piClure? What is imprudence, or what is vice, but a departure from every man's own interefi and yet thefe are the charaClerifiicks of mor~ than half the world?-.:_ -But, t~ cmne more clofely to the prefen! cafe, je!f-mterejl will be found bu~ a weak, oF THE HuMAN SPECIES. 157 weak barrier againfl: the (allies of pq/Jio1l: particularly where it has been daily indulged in its greatefi latitude, ~nd there are no laws to rcfirain its calanutous etfeCls. If the obfervation be true, that paffion is a fhort madnefs, then it is evident that felfinterefi, and every other conftderation, mull: be· loll:, (o long as it continues .. We ca~not have a fironger in fiance of tlus, than m a circumfl:ance related in the fecond part of this Eff.~y, " that though the Africans have gone to war for the exprefs purpofe of procun·n g llaves • yet (o great has been their refentment at the reftfl:ance they have frequently found , that their pnj)io12 has entirely got the better of their interefl,. and :hey have murdered all without any dJfcrumnation, either of age or fex ." Such may be prefumed to be the cafe wit~ the no lefs favage receivers. Imprell'ed w1th the moll: haughty and tyrannical notions, eaftly provoked, accufl:omcd to indulge their anger, and, above all, habituated to fcenes of cruelty, and unawed by the fear of laws, they will hardly be found to be exempt from the common failings of human nature, and to fpare |