presented to them; death is denounced if they run away; horrid
delaceration if they speak with their native freedom; perpetually
awed by the terrible cracks of whips, or by the fear of capital
punishments, while even those punishments often fail of their
purpose.

A clergyman settled a few years ago at George-Town, and feeling as I
do now, warmly recommended to the planters, from the pulpit, a
relaxation of severity; he introduced the benignity of Christianity,
and pathetically made use of the admirable precepts of that system
to melt the hearts of his congregation into a greater degree of
compassion toward their slaves than had been hitherto customary;
"Sir," said one of his hearers, "we pay you a genteel salary to read
to us the prayers of the liturgy, and to explain to us such parts of
the Gospel as the rule of the church directs; but we do not want you
to teach us what we are to do with our blacks." The clergyman found
it prudent to withhold any farther admonition. Whence this
astonishing right, or rather this barbarous custom, for most
certainly we have no kind of right beyond that of force? We are
told, it is true, that slavery cannot be so repugnant to human
nature as we at first imagine, because it has been practised in all
ages, and in all nations: the Lacedemonians themselves, those great
assertors of liberty, conquered the Helotes with the design of
making them their slaves; the Romans, whom we consider as our
masters in civil and military policy, lived in the exercise of the
most horrid oppression; they conquered to plunder and to enslave.
What a hideous aspect the face of the earth must then have
exhibited! Provinces, towns, districts, often depopulated! their
inhabitants driven to Rome, the greatest market in the world, and
there sold by thousands! The Roman dominions were tilled by the