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Show 236 ON THE SLAVERY AND COMME·RCE treatment of itfelf. For how fhamefully mull: thefe unfortunate people have been opprelfed 1 What a dreadful havock mull: famine, fatigue, and cruelty, have made among them, when we confider, that the dcfcendants of fix hundred a11d ./!fly thouftmd people in the prime of life, gradually imported within a century, are lefs numerous than thofe, which only ·* tm thoufand would have produced in the fame period, under common advantages, and in a country congenial to their confl:itutions 1 But the receivers have probably great merit a.n the occafion. Let us therefore fet it down to their humanity. Let us fuppofe for once, that this incredible wafl:e of the human fpecies proceeds from a benevolent delign; that, fenfible of the miferies of a fervile fl:ate, • Ten thoufand people under fair advantages, and in a foil congenial to their conftitutions, and where the means of fubfiftence are eafy, lhould produce in a century 16o,ooo. This is the proportion in which the· Americans increafed; and the Africans in their own country increafe in the fame, if not in a greater proportion. Now as the climate of the colonies is a.s favourable to their health as that of their own country, the caufes of the prodigious decreafe in the one, and increafe in the other, will be more confpicuous. they oF THE HuMAN SPECIES. 237 they refolve to wear out, as fail: as they poffibly can, their unfortunate llaves, that their miferies may the fooner end, and that a wretched pofl:erity may be prevented from !baring their parental condition. Now, whether this is the plan of reafoning which the receivers adopt, we cannot take upon us to decide; but true it is, that the elfetl: produced is exaCtly the fame, as if they had reafoned wholly on this bemvo/mt principle. C H A P. X. We have now taken a furvey of the treatment which the unfortunate Africans undergo, when they are put into the hands . of the receivers. This treatment, by the four firfl: chapters of the prefent part of this Elfay, appears to be wholly infupportable, and to be fuch as no J1uman being can apply to another, without the imputation of fuch crimes, as fuould make him tremble. But as many arguments are ufually advanced by thofe who have any intereft in the prac-tice, |
