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Show I 46 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMER CE wards attended them, had been never known; and how would thei r hill:ory have faved thofe fighs and emotions of pity, which mull: now ever accompany its perufal. The Europeans, on the ell:abliihment of their well:ern colonies, required a greater number of flaves than a firiCl: adherence to the treaty could produce. The princes therefore had only the choice of relinquiihing the commerce, or of confcnting to become unjull:. They had long experienced the emoluments of the trade; they had acquired a tall:e for the luxuries it afforded; and they now beheld ai1 opportunity of gratifying it, but in a more extenfive manner. Avarice therefore, which was too powerful for jujlice on this occaiion, immediately turned the fcale: not only thofe, who were fairly conviCted of offenc es, were now fentenced to fervitude, but even thofewho werefu.JPeCI~d. New crimes were invented, that new punia1ments might fucceed. Thus was every appearance foon confirucd into reality; every ihadow into a fubll:ance; and often virtue into a crime. Such alfo was the cafe with refpeCl: to prifoncrs of war. Not only thofe were now delivered OF THE HUMAN SPEC!El>. 47 delivered into navery, who were taken in a ll:ate of publick enmity and injull:ice, but thofe alfo, who, confcious of no injury whatever, were taken in the arbitrary fkirmi/ hes of thefe vmal fovereigns. War was now made, not as formerly, from the motives of retaliation and defence, but for the fake of obtaining prifoners alone, and the advantages refulting from their fale. If a ihip from Europe came but into figh t, it was now confidered as a fufficient motive for a. war, and as a ligna! only for an inll:antaneous commencement of holl:ilities. But if the African kings could be capable of fuch injufiice, what vices are there, that their confciences would refirain, or what enormities, that we might not expeCt to b(; committed? When men once confent to be unjufi, they lofe, at the fame inll:ant with their virtue, a conliderable portion of that fenfe of ihame, which, till then, bad been found a fuccefsful proteCtor againll: the [allies of vice. From that awful period, almoll: every expeCtation is forlorn : the heart is left unguarded : its great proteCtor is no more : the vifu therefore, which fo long cncompaifed |