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 classes 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 pass 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 assertion, that their situation is even comfortable, contains its own refutation, or at least leads us to suspect that the person, who asserted 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 assertion without a proof. It is not shewn even by those, who assert 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 constitute an offence;^[097] the other has no such information, as he is wholly at the disposal of passion 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 assert, on comparing the whole of those circumstances 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 class of men has been misrepresented, to elevate the former to a state of fictitious 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 circumstance. 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 amusement, 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 amusement, 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.

The third advantage which they are said to experience, is that of holy-days, or days of respite from their usual discipline and fatigue. This is certainly a great indulgence, and ought to be recorded to the immortal honour of the receivers. We wish we could express their liberality in those handsome terms, in which it deserves to be represented, or applaud them sufficiently for deviating for once from the rigours of servile discipline. But we confess, that we are unequal to the task, and must therefore content ourselves with observing, that while the horse has one day in seven to refresh his limbs, the happy African^[101] has but one in fifty-two, as a relaxation from his labours.

With respect to their dances, on which such a particular stress has been generally laid, we fear that people may have been as shamefully deceived, as in the former instances. For from the manner in which these are generally mentioned, we should almost be led to imagine, that they had certain hours allowed them for the purpose of joining in the dance, and that they had every comfort and convenience, that people are generally supposed to enjoy on such convivial occasions. But this is far from the case. Reason informs us, that it can never be. If they wish for such innocent recreations, they must enjoy them in the time that is allotted them for sleep; and so far are these dances from proceeding from any uncommon degree of happiness, which excites them to convivial society, that they proceed rather from an uncommon depression of spirits, which makes them even sacrifice their rest,^[102] for the sake of experiencing for a moment a more joyful oblivion of their cares. For suppose any one of the receivers, in the middle of a dance, were to address his slaves in the following manner: "Africans! I begin at last to feel for your situation; and my conscience is severely hurt, whenever I reflect that I have been reducing those to a state of misery and pain, who have never given me offence. You seem to be fond of these exercises, but yet you are obliged to take them at such unseasonable hours, that they impair your health, which is sufficiently broken by the intolerable share of labour which I have hitherto imposed upon you. I will therefore make you a proposal. Will you be content to live in the colonies, and you shall have the half of every week entirely to yourselves? or will you choose to return to your miserable, wretched country?"-But what is that which strikes their ears? Which makes them motionless in an instant? Which interrupts the festive scene?-their country?-transporting sound!-Behold! they are now flying from the dance: you may see them running to the shore, and, frantick as it were with joy, demanding with open arms an instantaneous passage to their beloved native plains.

Such are the colonial delights, by the representation of which the receivers would persuade us, that the Africans are taken from their country to a region of conviviality and mirth; and that like those, who leave their usual places of residence for a summer's amusement, they are conveyed to the colonies-to bathe,-to dance,-to keep holy-day,-to be jovial.-But there is something so truly ridiculous in the attempt to impose these scenes of felicity on the publick, as scenes which fall to the lot of slaves, that the receivers must have been driven to great extremities, to hazard them to the eye of censure.

The last point that remains to be considered, is the shameful assertion, that the Africans are much happier in the colonies, than in their own country. But in what does this superiour happiness consist? In those real scenes, it must be replied, which have been just mentioned; for these, by the confession of the receivers, constitute the happiness they enjoy.-But it has been shewn that these have been unfairly represented; and, were they realized in the most extensive latitude, they would not confirm the fact. For if, upon a recapitulation, it consists in the pleasure of manumission, they surely must have passed their lives in a much more comfortable manner, who, like the Africans at home, have had no occasion for such a benefit at all. But the receivers, we presume, reason upon this principle, that we never know the value of a blessing but by its loss. This is generally true: but would any one of them make himself a slave for years, that he might run the chance of the pleasures of manumission? Or that he might taste the charms of liberty with a greater relish? Nor is the assertion less false in every other consideration. For if their happiness consists in the few holy-days, which in the colonies they are permitted to enjoy, what must be their situation in their own country, where the whole year is but one continued holy-day, or cessation from discipline and fatigue?-If in the possession of a mean and contracted spot, what must be their situation, where a whole region is their own, producing almost spontaneously the comforts of life, and requiring for its cultivation none of those hours, which should be appropriated to sleep?-If in the pleasures of the colonial dance, what must it be in their own country, where they may dance for ever; where there is no stated hour to interrupt their felicity, no intolerable labour immediately to succeed their recreations, and no overseer to receive them under the discipline of the lash?-If these therefore are the only circumstances, by which the assertion can be proved, we may venture to say, without fear of opposition, that it can never be proved at all.

But these are not the only circumstances. It is said that they are barbarous at home.-But do you receivers civilize them?-Your unwillingness to convert them to Christianity, because you suppose you must use them more kindly when converted, is but a bad argument in favour of the fact.

It is affirmed again, that their manner of life, and their situation is such in their own country, that to say they are happy is a jest. "But who are you, who pretend to judge^[103] of another man's happiness? That state which each man, under the guidance of his maker, forms for himself, and not one man for another? To know what constitutes mine or your happiness, is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and cast us in so various and different moulds. Did your slaves ever complain to you of their unhappiness, amidst their native woods and desarts? Or, rather, let me ask, did they ever cease complaining of their condition under you their lordly masters? Where they see, indeed, the accommodations of civil life, but see them all pass to others, themselves unbenefited by them. Be so gracious then, ye petty tyrants over human freedom, to let your slaves judge for themselves, what it is which makes their own happiness, and then see whether they do not place it in the return to their own country, rather than in the contemplation of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a part."

But since you speak with so much confidence on the subject, let us ask you receivers again, if you have ever been informed by your unfortunate slaves, that they had no connexions in the country from which they have forcibly been torn away: or, if you will take upon you to assert, that they never sigh, when they are alone; or that they never relate to each other their tales of misery and woe. But you judge of them, perhaps, in an happy moment, when you are dealing out to them their provisions for the week; and are but little aware, that, though the countenance may be cheered with a momentary smile, the heart may be exquisitely tortured. Were you to shew us, indeed, that there are laws, subject to no evasion, by which you are obliged to clothe and feed them in a comfortable manner; were you to shew us that they are protected^[104] at all; or that even one in a thousand of those masters have suffered death,^[105] who have been guilty of premeditated murder to their slaves, you would have a better claim to our belief: but you can neither produce the instances nor the laws. The people, of whom you speak, are slaves, are your own property, are wholly at your own disposal; and this idea is sufficient to overturn your assertions of their happiness.