nevertheless human laws cannot make void the righteous law of God, or
prevent the inquisition of that awful judgment day, when, "_at the hand
of every man's brother the life of man shall be required_." By the law
of South Carolina, the person that killeth a Negroe is only subject to a
fine, or twelve months imprisonment. It is the same in most, if not all
the West-Indies. And by an act of the assembly of Virginia, (4 Ann. Ch.
49. sect. 27. p. 227.) after proclamation is issued against slaves,
"that run away and lie out, _it is lawful for any person whatsoever to
kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as he, she, or they
shall think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the
same_."--And lest private interest should incline the planter to mercy,
it is provided, "_That every slave so killed, in pursuance of this act,
shall be paid for by the public_."

It was doubtless a like sense of sympathy with that expressed by Morgan
Godwyn before mentioned, for the oppressed Negroes, and like zeal for
the cause of religion, so manifestly trampled upon in the case of the
Negroes, which induced Richard Baxter, an eminent preacher amongst the
Dissenters in the last century, in his _christian directory_, to express
himself as follows, viz. "Do you mark how God hath followed you with
plagues; and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity
to the souls and bodies of men?"--"To go as pirates; and catch up poor
Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or
liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst
kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the
common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts
for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their
souls, are fitter to be called devils incarnate than christians: It is
an heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them.
Undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because by right