hich extorts from scripture a
justification of the Slave-trade, had fulfilled the apostolic maxim, that
he should have nothing to eat. The use he meant to make of this instance
was to show the unprotected state of the slaves. What must it be, where
such an instance could pass not only unpunished, but almost unregarded! If,
in the streets of London, but a dog were to be seen lacerated like this
miserable man, how would the cruelty of the wretch be execrated, who had
thus even abused a brute!

The judicial punishments also inflicted upon the Negro showed the low
estimation, in which, in consequence of the strength of old customs and
deep-rooted prejudices, they were held. Mr. Edwards, in his speech to the
Assembly at Jamaica, stated the following case, as one which had happened
in one of the rebellions there. Some slaves surrounded the dwelling-house
of their mistress. She was in bed with a lovely infant. They deliberated
upon the means of putting her to death in torment. But in the end one of
them reserved her for his mistress; and they killed her infant with an axe
before her face. "Now," says Mr. Edwards, (addressing himself to his
audience,) "you will think that no torments were too great for such
horrible excesses. Nevertheless I am of a different opinion. I think that
death, unaccompanied with cruelty, should be the utmost exertion of human
authority over our unhappy fellow-creatures." Torments, however, were
always inflicted in these cases. The punishment was gibbeting alive, and
exposing the delinquents to perish by the gradual effects of hunger,
thirst, and a parching sun; in which situation they were known to suffer
for nine days, with a fortitude scarcely credible, never uttering a single
groan. But horrible as the excesses might have been, which occasioned these
punishments, it muse be remembered, that they were committed by ignorant
savages, who had been dragged from all they held most dear; whose patience
had been exhausted by a cruel and loathsome confinement during their
transportation; and whose resentment had been wound up to the highest pitch
of fury by the lash of the driver.

But he would now mention another instance, by way of contrast, out of the
evidence. A child on board a slave-ship, of about ten months old, took sulk
and would not eat. The captain flogged it with a cat; swearing that he
would make it eat, or kill it. From this and other ill-treatment the
child's legs swelled. He then ordered som