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Show 238 ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE tice, by which they would either exculpate the treatment, or diminilh its feverity, we allotted the remaining chapters for their difcuffion. In thefe we coniidered the pro· bability of fuch a treatment againil: tl)e motives of intereil:; the credit that was to be given to thofe difintereil:ed writers on the fubjetl:, who have recorded particular in fiances of barbarity; the inferiority of the African• to the human fpecies; the comparifons that are generally made with refpetl: to their fituation; the poiitive fcenes of felicity which they are faid t0 enjoy, and every other argument, in lhort, that we have found to have ever been advanced in the defence of flavery. Thefe have been all coniidered, and we may venture to pronounce, that, inil:ead of anfwering the purpofe for which they were intended, they ferve only to bring fuch circumil:ances to light, as clearly lhew, that if ingenuity were 1'acked to invent a fituation, that would be the moil: diil:refiing and infupportable to the human race; it could never invent one, that would fuit the defcription better, than the--colonial jla'IJery. If or THE HuMAN SPECIES. If this then be the cafe, and if flaves, notwithil:anding all the arguments to the contrary, are exquifitely miferable, we aik you recei'IJerJ, by what right you reduce them to fo wretched a fituation ? You reply, that you buy them; that your money conil:itutes your right, and that, like all other things which you purchafe, they are wholly at your own difpofal. Upon this principle alone it was, that we profefTed to view your treatment, or examine your right, when we faid, that * the quefl:ion refolved itfelf into two " feparate parts for difcuffion; into the African commerce, as explained in the hifl:ory of flavery, and the fu bfeq uent " flavery in the colonies, m founded on the " equity of the commerce." Now, fince it appears that this commerce, upon the fulleil: inveil:igation, is contrary to "t the prin-cipln of law and go'IJernment, the dielatu " qf reqfon, the common maxim• of equity, the law! of nature, the admonitiom of confcience, " and, in jhort, the whole doelrine if natural • Page s6. t Page liS· " religion," |
