| OCR Text |
Show 110 ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE volence. Does a man fet fire to an hou(e1 for the purpofe of refcuing the inhabitants from the flames? But if they are only purchafed, to deliver tbem .fi·om deatb; why, when they arc delivered into your hands, as protectors, do you torture them with hunger? Why do you kill them with fatigue? Why does the whip deform their bodies, or the knife their limbs ? Why do you fentence them to death? to a death, infinitely more excruciating than that from which you fo kindly faved them? What anfwer do you make to this? for if you had not humanely preferved them from the hands of their conquerors, a quick death perhaps, and that in the fpace of a moment, had freed them from their pain: but on account of your favour and benevolence, it is known, that they have lingered years in pain and agony, and have been fentenced at !all:, to a dreadful death for the moil: in~ fignificant offence. Neither can we allow the other argument to be true, on which you, found your merit; " that you take them from their country for their own convenience; becaufe Af" rica, or TilE HuMAN SP!oCIES. Ill rica, fcorched with incdi111t heat, and fubj e<'l to the moil: violent rains and tcmpefis, is unwholefome, and unfit to be inhabited." Prepoil:erous men! do you thus judge from your own feelings ? Do you thus judge from your own confiitution and frame ? But if you fuppofe that the Africans are incapable of enduring their own climate, becau{e you cannot endure it yourfelves; why do you receive them into flavery? Why do you not meaCure them here by the fame il:andard? For if you are unable to bear hunger and thiril:, chains and imprifonment, wounds and torture, why do you not fuppofe them incapable of enduring the £~me treatment? Thus then is your argument turned againft yourfelves. But confider the anfwer which the Scythians gave the A':gyptians, whe11 they contended about the antiquity of their original, *" That nature, when !he firfi: " diil:inguiihed countries by different de-grees of heat and cold, tempered the bodies of animals, at the fame inil:ant, to endure the different lituations : that • Juftin~ L. 1. C. 1· " as |
