of arbitrary power_, and _so long as Negro-evidence is invalid against
the white oppressor_, and _so long as human nature continues to be what
it is_, _no order_ from the Master for the better personal treatment of
the Slave _will or can be obeyed_. It is against the _system_ then, and
not against the West Indians as a body, that I am warm, should I be
found so unintentionally, in the present work.

One word or two now on another part of the subject. A great noise will
be made, no doubt, when the question of Emancipation comes to be
agitated, about _the immense property at stake_, I mean the property of
the Planters;--and others connected with them. This is all well. Their
interests ought undoubtedly to be attended to. But I hope and trust,
that, if property is to be attended to _on one side_ of the question, it
will be equally attended to _on the other_. This is but common justice.
If you put into one scale _the gold_ and _jewels_ of the Planters, you
are bound to put into the other _the liberty_ of 800,000 of the African
race; for every man's liberty is _his own property_ by the laws of
_Nature_, _Reason_, _Justice_, and _Religion_? and, if it be not so with
our West Indian Slaves, it _is only because_ they have been, and
continue to be, _deprived_ of it _by force_. And here let us consider
for a moment which of these two different sorts of property is of the
greatest value. Let us suppose an English gentleman to be seized by
ruffians on the banks of the Thames (and why not a _gentleman_ when
African _princes_ have been so served?) and hurried away to a land (and
Algiers is such a land, for instance), where white persons are held as
Slaves. Now this gentleman has not been used to severe labour (neither
has the African in his own country); and being therefore unable, though
he does his best, to please his master, he is roused to further exertion
_by the whip_. Perhaps he takes this treatment indignantly. This only
secures him _a severer punishment_. I say nothing of his being badly