Part 14 (2/2)

There are no people within that distance of _Colchis_, who are black.]

[Footnote 096: There are a particular people among those transported from Africa to the colonies, who immediately on receiving punishment, destroy themselves. This is a fact which the _receivers_ are unable to contradict.]

CHAP. IX.

The reader may perhaps think, that the _receivers_ have by this time expended all their arguments, but their store is not so easily exhausted. They are well aware that justice, nature, and religion, will continue, as they have ever uniformly done, to oppose their conduct.

This has driven them to exert their ingenuity, and has occasioned that multiplicity of arguments to be found in the present question.

These arguments are of a different complexion from the former. They consist in comparing the state of _slaves_ with that of some of the cla.s.ses of _free_ men, and in certain scenes of felicity, which the former are said to enjoy.

It is affirmed that the punishments which the Africans undergo, are less severe than the military; that their life is happier than that of the English peasant; that they have the advantages of manumission; that they have their little spots of ground, their holy-days, their dances; in short, that their life is a scene of festivity and mirth, and that they are much happier in the colonies than in their own country.

These representations, which have been made out with much ingenuity and art, may have had their weight with the unwary; but they will never pa.s.s with men of consideration and sense, who are accustomed to estimate the probability of things, before they admit them to be true. Indeed the bare a.s.sertion, that their situation is even comfortable, contains its own refutation, or at least leads us to suspect that the person, who a.s.serted it, has omitted some important considerations in the account.

Such we shall shew to have been actually the case, and that the representations of the _receivers_, when stripped of their glossy ornaments, are but empty declamation.

It is said, first, of _military punishments_, that they are more severe than those which the _Africans_ undergo. But this is a bare a.s.sertion without a proof. It is not shewn even by those, who a.s.sert it, how the fact can be made out. We are left therefore to draw the comparison ourselves, and to fill up those important considerations, which we have just said that the _receivers_ had omitted.

That military punishments are severe we confess, but we deny that they are severer than those with which they are compared. Where is the military man, whose ears have been slit, whose limbs have been mutilated, or whose eyes have been beaten out? But let us even allow, that their punishments are equal in the degree of their severity: still they must lose by comparison. The soldier is never punished but after a fair and equitable trial, and the decision of a military court; the unhappy African, at the discretion of his Lord. The one knows what particular conduct will const.i.tute an offence[097]; the other has no such information, as he is wholly at the disposal of pa.s.sion and caprice, which may impose upon any action, however laudable, the appellation of a crime. The former has it of course in his power to avoid a punishment; the latter is never safe. The former is punished for a real, the latter, often, for an imaginary fault.

Now will any person a.s.sert, on comparing the whole of those circ.u.mstances together, which relate to their respective punishments, that there can be any doubt, which of the two are in the worst situation, as to their penal systems?

With respect to the declaration, that the life of an _African_ in the colonies is happier than that of an _English_ peasant, it is equally false. Indeed we can scarcely withhold our indignation, when we consider, how shamefully the situation of this latter cla.s.s of men has been misrepresented, to elevate the former to a state of fict.i.tious happiness. If the representations of the _receivers_ be true, it is evident that those of the most approved writers, who have placed a considerable share of happiness in the _cottage_, have been mistaken in their opinion; and that those of the rich, who have been heard to sigh, and envy the felicity of the _peasant_, have been treacherous to their own sensations.

But which are we to believe on the occasion? Those, who endeavour to dress _vice_ in the habit of _virtue_, or those, who derive their opinion from their own feelings? The latter are surely to be believed; and we may conclude therefore, that the horrid picture which is given of the life of the _peasant_, has not so just a foundation as the _receivers_ would, lead us to suppose. For has he no pleasure in the thought, that he lives in his _own country_, and among his relations and friends? That he is actually _free_, and that his children will be the same? That he can never be _sold_ as a beast? That he can speak his mind _without the fear of the lash_?

That he cannot even be struck _with impunity_? And that he partakes, equally with his superiours, of the _protection of the law_?--Now, there is no one of these advantages which the _African_ possesses, and no one, which the defenders of slavery take into their account.

Of the other comparisons that are usually made, we may observe in general, that, as they consist in comparing the iniquitous practice of slavery with other iniquitous practices in force among other nations, they can neither raise it to the appearance of virtue, nor extenuate its guilt. The things compared are in these instances both of them evils alike. They call equally for redress[098], and are equally disgraceful to the governments which suffer them, if not encourage them, to exist.

To attempt therefore to justify one species of iniquity by comparing it with another, is no justification at all; and is so far from answering the purpose, for which the comparison is intended, as to give us reason to suspect, that the _comparer_ has but little notion either of equity or honour.

We come now to those scenes of felicity, which slaves are said to enjoy.

The first advantage which they are said to experience, is that of _manumission_. But here the advocates for slavery conceal an important circ.u.mstance. They expatiate indeed on the charms of freedom, and contend that it must be a blessing in the eyes of those, upon whom it is conferred. We perfectly agree with them in this particular. But they do not tell us that these advantages are _confined_; that they are confined to some _favourite domestick_; that not _one in an hundred_ enjoy them; and that they are _never_ extended to those, who are employed in the _cultivation of the field_, as long as they can work. These are they, who are most to be pitied, who are destined to _perpetual_ drudgery; and of whom _no one whatever_ has a chance of being freed from his situation, till death either releases him at once, or age renders him incapable of continuing his former labour. And here let it be remarked, _to the disgrace of the receivers_, that he is then made free, not--_as a reward for his past services_, but, as his labour is then of little or no value,--_to save the tax_[099].

With the same artifice is mention also made of the little spots, or _gardens_, as they are called, which slaves are said to possess from the _liberality_ of _the receivers_. But people must not be led away by agreeable and pleasant sounds. They must not suppose that these gardens are made for _flowers_; or that they are places of _amus.e.m.e.nt_, in which they can spend their time in botanical researches and delights. Alas, they do not furnish them with a theme for such pleasing pursuits and speculations! They must be cultivated in those hours, which ought to be appropriated to rest[100]; and they must be cultivated, not for an amus.e.m.e.nt, but to make up, _if it be possible_, the great deficiency in their weekly allowance of provisions. Hence it appears, that the _receivers_ have no merit whatever in such an appropriation of land to their unfortunate slaves: for they are either under the necessity of doing this, or of _losing_ them by the jaws of famine. And it is a notorious fact, that, with their weekly allowance, and the produce of their spots together, it is often with the greatest difficulty that they preserve a wretched existence.

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