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Show 86 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERCE " fo their elfeCl:s followed the condition of " their perfons, and became the property of " the captors." To examine this right, by which the vanquiQ, ed were .G1id to be naves, we {hall ufo the words of a celebrated Roman author, and apply them to the prefent cafe. *" lf it is lawful," fays he, " to deprive a man " of his life, it is certainly not inconli!l:" ent with nature to rob him;" to rob him of his li berry. We admit the conclulion to be jufl:, if the fuppolition be the J':une: we allow, if men have a right to commit that, which is conlidered as a greater crime, that they have a right, at the fame infl:ant, to commit that, which is con!idered as a lefs. But what !hall we fay to the bypotbijis? We deny it to be true. The voice of nature is againfl: it. It is not lawful to kill, but on necdJity. Had there been a ncceffi.ty, where had the wretched captive furvived to be broken with chains and fervitude? The very ac2 of faving his life is an argument to prove, that no fuch neceffi.ty exifl:ed. The conclu- • Ncque eft contra naturam fpoliare cum, fi poffis, quem honeftum eft necarc, Cicero de officiis. L, 3. 6. )ion or THE HuMAN SPECIES. jion is therefore falfe. The captors had n~ right to the lives of the captured, and of courfe none to their liberty: they had no right to ti:eir blood, and of courfe none to theirjervice. Their right therefore had no foundation in ju{\ice. It was founded on a principle, contrary to the law of nature, and of courfe contrary to that law, wluch people, under different governments, are bound to obferve to one anoth.e . r. It is fcarce necelfary to obferve, as a farther te{\imony of the inju!l:ice of the meafure, that the Europeans, after the introduCl: ion of Chriflianity, exploded this principle of the ancients, as frivolous and falfe; that they (pared the lives of the vanqu1a1ed, not from the fordid motives of avartce, but from a confcientioufi1efs, that homicide could only be ju!l:ified by nectjjity; that they introduced an exchange of prifoners, and, by many and wife regulati9ns, deprived war of many of its former horrours. · But the advocates for llavery, unable to defend themfelves again!l: thcfe arguments, have fled to other refources, and, ignorant of hiflory, have denied that the rigbt of capturt F 4 was |