afflicted and oppressed people reach heaven? and when the cup of
iniquity is full, must not the inevitable consequence be, the pouring
forth of the judgments of God upon their oppressors? But alas! is it not
too manifest that this oppression has already long been the object of
the divine displeasure? For what heavier judgment, what greater
calamity, can befal any people, than to become subject to that hardness
of heart, that forgetfulness of God, and insensibility to every
religious impression, as well as that general depravation of manners,
which so much prevails in these colonies, in proportion as they have
more or less enriched themselves at the expence of the blood and bondage
of the Negroes.

It is a dreadful consideration, as a late author remarks, that out of
the stock of eighty thousand Negroes in Barbadoes, there die every year
five thousand more than are born in that island; which failure is
probably in the same proportion in the other islands. _In effect, this
people is under a necessity of being entirely renewed every sixteen
years._ And what must we think of the management of a people, who, far
from increasing greatly, as those who have no loss by war ought to do,
must, in so short a time as sixteen years, without foreign recruits, be
entirely consumed to a man! Is it not a christian doctrine, _that the
labourer is worthy of his hire?_ And hath not the Lord, by the mouth of
his prophet, pronounced, _"Wo unto that man who buildeth his house by
unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; who uses his neighbour's
service without wages, and giveth him nought for his work?"_ And yet the
poor Negro slaves are constrained, like the beasts, by beating, to work
hard without hire or recompence, and receive nothing from the hand of
their unmerciful masters, but such a wretched provision as will scarce
support them under their fatigues. The intolerable hardships many of the
slaves undergo, are sufficiently proved by the shortness of their