brought against them, as a justification of their own wickedness in
continuing to deprive them of the rights of men.

Edmund Burke, in his account of the European settlements, (for this work
is usually attributed to him,) complains "that the Negroes in our
colonies endure a slavery more complete, and attended with far worse
circumstances, than what any people in their condition suffer, in any
other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time.
Proofs of this are not wanting. The prodigious waste, which we
experience in this unhappy part of our species, is a full and melancholy
evidence of this truth." And he goes on to advise the planters, for the
sake of their own interest, to behave like good men, good masters, and
good Christians, and to impose less labour upon their slaves, and to
give them recreation on some of the grand festivals, and to instruct
them in religion, as certain preventives of their decrease.

An anonymous author of a pamphlet, entitled, _An Essay in Vindication of
the Continental Colonies of America_, seems to have come forward next.
Speaking of slavery there, he says, "It is shocking to humanity,
violative of every generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the
Christian religion.--There cannot be a more dangerous maxim than that
necessity is a plea for injustice, for who shall fix the degree of this
necessity? What villain so atrocious, who may not urge this excuse, or,
as Milton has happily expressed it,

And with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excuse his devilish deed?


"That our colonies," he continues, "want people, is a very weak argument