Thus then do the excuses, which have been hitherto made by the receivers, force a relation of such circumstances, as makes their conduct totally inexcusable, and, instead of diminishing at all, highly aggravates their guilt.

* * * * *

CHAP.  VII.

We come now to that other system of reasoning, which is always applied, when the former is confuted; “that the Africans are an inferiour link of the chain of nature, and are made for slavery.”

This assertion is proved by two arguments; the first of which was advanced also by the ancients, and is drawn from the inferiority of their capacities.

Let us allow then for a moment, that they appear to have no parts, that they appear to be void of understanding.  And is this wonderful, when, you receivers depress their senses by hunger?  Is this wonderful, when by incessant labour, the continual application of the lash, and the most inhuman treatment that imagination can devise, you overwhelm their genius, and hinder it from breaking forth?—­No,—­You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude:  for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those faculties, which might otherwise have shone with the brightest lustre.

Neither is it wonderful in another point of view.  For what is it that awakens the abilities of men, and distinguishes them from the common herd?  Is it not often the amiable hope of becoming serviceable to individuals, or the state?  Is it not often the hope of riches, or of power?  Is it not frequently the hope of temporary honours, or a lasting fame?  These principles have all a wonderful effect upon the mind.  They call upon it to exert its faculties, and bring those talents to the publick view, which had otherwise been concealed.  But the unfortunate Africans have no such incitements as these, that they should shew their genius.  They have no hope of riches, power, honours, fame.  They have no hope but this, that their miseries will be soon terminated by death.

And here we cannot but censure and expose the murmurings of the unthinking and the gay; who, going on in a continual round of pleasure and prosperity, repine at the will of Providence, as exhibited in the shortness of human duration.  But let a weak and infirm old age overtake them:  let them experience calamities:  let them feel but half the miseries which the wretched Africans undergo, and they will praise the goodness of Providence, who hath made them mortal; who hath prescribed certain ordinary bounds to the life of man; and who, by such a limitation, hath given all men this comfortable hope, that however persecuted in life, a time will come, in the common course of nature, when their sufferings will have an end.