their present number, as compared with that of the whites in the same
colony, nearly as _one hundred and fifty to one_; notwithstanding which
superiority fresh emancipations are constantly taking place, as fresh
cargoes of the captured arrive in port.

It will be said, lastly, that all the four cases put together prove
nothing. They can give us nothing like _a positive assurance_, that the
Negro slaves in our colonies would pass through the ordeal of
emancipation without danger to their masters or the community at large.
Certainly not. Nor if these instances had been far more numerous than
they are, could they, in this world of accidents, have given us _a moral
certainty of this_. They afford us however _a hope_, that emancipation
is practicable without danger: for will any one pretend to say, that we
should have had as much reason for entertaining such a hope, _if no such
instances had occurred_; or that we should not have had reason to
despair, _if four such experiments had been made, and if they had all
failed_? They afford us again ground for believing, that there is a
peculiar softness, and plasticity, and pliability in the African
character. This softness may be collected almost every where from the
Travels of Mr. Mungo Park, and has been noticed by other writers, who
have contrasted it with the unbending ferocity of the North American
Indians and other tribes. But if this be a feature in the African
character, we may account for the uniformity of the conduct of those
Africans, who were liberated on the several occasions above mentioned,
or for their yielding so uniformly to the impressions, which had been
given them by their superiors, after they had been made free; and, if
this be so, why should not our colonial slaves, if emancipated, conduct
themselves in the same manner? Besides, I am not sure whether the good
conduct of the liberated in these cases was not to be attributed in part
to a sense of interest, when they came to know, that their condition