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Show 96 ON THE SLAVERY AND Colv;MERCE has European injujlice been fpread, at the diftance of a thoufand miles from the factories on the co:ill. The )lave merchants, among whom a quantity of European goods is previoully divided, travel into the l:eart of the country to this amazing difiance. Some of them attend the various markets, that are efiablilhed through fo large an extent of. territory, to purchafe the kidnapped people, whom the )lave-hunters are continually bringing in ; while the refi, fubdividing their merchandize among the petty fovereigns with whom they deal, receive, by an immediate exertion of fraud and violence, the fiipulated number. Now, will any man alfert, in oppofition to the arguments before advanced, that out of this immenfe body of men, thus annually colleCted and tranfported, there is even one, over whom the original or fubfequent feller can have any power or right ? Whoever aflerts this, in the firfi infiance, muft contradiCt his own feelings, and mufi confider him.fe(f as a jufi objeCt of prey, whenever any daring invader /hall think it proper to attack him. And, in the fecond infiance, oF T H E IIu M,\N SPECI ES . 97 infiance, the very idea which the African princes entertain of their vi llages, as parks or rifervoi,·s, fioc ked only for their own convenience, and of their fubjeCts, as "<vild beajls, whom they may purfue and take at plcafure, is fo /hocking, that · it need only be mentioned, to be infiantly reprobated by the reader. The order of llaves, which is next to the former in refpeCt to the n~mber of people whom it contains, is that of prifoners of war. This order, if the former Jl:atement be true, is more inconfiderable than is generally imagined; but whoever refleCts on the prodigious llaughter that is confiantly made in every African Jkirmilh, cannot be otherwife than of this opinion : he will find, that where ten are taken, he has every reafon to prefume that an hundred perilh. In fame of thefe JkirmiO>cS, though they have been begun for the exprefs purpofe of procuring )laves, the conquerors have fuffered but few of the vanquilhed to efcape the fury of the fword; and there have not been wanting infiances, where they have been fo ince.1fed ~t the refifl:ance they have found, that their G fpirit |