to go to, where they were well attended:  and whatever money in charity was sent them by their friends in Europe, was their own.”  Braithwaite’s revolutions of Morocco.  Lady Montague, wife of the English ambassador at Constantinople, in her letters, vol. 3. page 20, writes, “I know you expect I should say something particular of the slaves; and you will imagine me half a Turk, when I do not speak of it with the same horror other christians have done before me; but I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to these creatures; they are not ill used; and their slavery, in my opinion, is no worse than servitude all over the world.  It is true they have no wages, but they give them yearly cloaths to a higher value than our salaries to our ordinary servants.” ]

[Footnote B:  W. Moor, p. 30]

[Footnote C:  Collection vol. 2. p. 647.]

CHAP.  VII.

Montesquieu’s sentiments on slavery.  Moderation enjoined by the Mosaic law in the punishment of offenders.  Morgan Godwyn’s account of the contempt and grievous rigour exercised upon the Negroes in his time.  Account from Jamaica, relating to the inhuman treatment of them there.  Bad effects attendant on slave-keeping, as well to the masters as the slaves.  Extracts from several laws relating to Negroes.  Richard Baxter’s sentiments on slave-keeping.

That celebrated civilian Montesquieu, in his treatise on the spirit of laws, on the article of slavery says, “It is neither useful to the master nor slave; to the slave, because he can do nothing through principle (or virtue); to the master, because he contracts with his slave all sorts of bad habits, insensibly accustoms himself to want all moral virtues; becomes haughty, hasty, hard-hearted, passionate, voluptuous, and cruel.”  The lamentable truth of this assertion was quickly verified in the English plantations.  When the practice of slave-keeping was introduced, it soon produced its natural effects; it reconciled men, of otherwise good dispositions, to the most hard and cruel measures.  It quickly proved, what, under the law of Moses, was apprehended would be the consequence of unmerciful chastisements.  Deut. xxv. 2. “And it shall be if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number; forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed.”  And the reason rendered, is out of respect to human nature, viz. “Lest if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.”  As this effect soon followed the cause, the cruelest measures were adopted, in order to make the most of the poor wretches labour; and in the minds of the masters such an idea was excited of inferiority, in the nature of these their unhappy fellow creatures, that they soon esteemed and treated them as beasts