way. Thus planters get rich; so raw, so unexperienced am I in this
mode of life, that were I to be possessed of a plantation, and my
slaves treated as in general they are here, never could I rest in
peace; my sleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of
the frauds committed in Africa, in order to entrap them; frauds
surpassing in enormity everything which a common mind can possibly
conceive. I should be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet
with on ship-board; of their anguish, of the despair necessarily
inspired by their situation, when torn from their friends and
relations; when delivered into the hands of a people differently
coloured, whom they cannot understand; carried in a strange machine
over an ever agitated element, which they had never seen before; and
finally delivered over to the severities of the whippers, and the
excessive labours of the field. Can it be possible that the force of
custom should ever make me deaf to all these reflections, and as
insensible to the injustice of that trade, and to their miseries, as
the rich inhabitants of this town seem to be? What then is man; this
being who boasts so much of the excellence and dignity of his
nature, among that variety of unscrutable mysteries, of unsolvable
problems, with which he is surrounded? The reason why man has been
thus created, is not the least astonishing! It is said, I know that
they are much happier here than in the West Indies; because land
being cheaper upon this continent than in those islands, the fields
allowed them to raise their subsistence from, are in general more
extensive. The only possible chance of any alleviation depends on
the humour of the planters, who, bred in the midst of slaves, learn
from the example of their parents to despise them; and seldom
conceive either from religion or philosophy, any ideas that tend to
make their fate less calamitous; except some strong native
tenderness of heart, some rays of philanthropy, overcome the