ults, and are equally prone to forgiveness, as to
resentments. They have gratitude also, and will even expose their
lives to wipe off the obligation of past favors; nor do they want
any of the refinements of taste, so much the boast of those who
call themselves Christians.

"The talent for music, both vocal and instrumental, appears
natural to them; neither is their genius for literature to be
despised. Many instances are recorded of men of eminence among
them. Witness Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all
men of taste. Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished herself as a
poetess; the Physician of New Orleans; the Virginia Calculator;
Banneker, the Maryland Astronomer, and many others, whom it would
be needless to mention. These are sufficient to show, that the
Africans whom you despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes, and
whom you unlawfully subject to slavery, are equally capable of
improvement with yourselves.

"This you may think a bold assertion; but it is not made without
reflection, nor independent of the testimony of many who have
taken pains in their education. Because you see few, in comparison
to their number, who make any exertion of ability at all, you are
ready to enjoy the common opinion that they are an inferior set
of beings, and destined to the cruelties and hardships you impose
upon them.

"But be cautious how long you hold such sentiments; the time may
come when you will be obliged to abandon them. Consider the
pitiable situation of these most distressed beings, deprived of
their liberty and reduced to slavery. Consider also that they toil
not for themselves from the rising of the sun to its going down,
and you will readily conceive the cause of their inaction. What
time or what incitement has a slave to become wise? There is no
great art in hilling corn, or in running a furrow; and to do this
they know they are doomed, whether they seek into the mysteries of
science or remain ignorant as they are.

"To deprive a man of his liberty has a tendency to rob his soul of
every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become
fiends, the wonder could not be great. 'Nothing more assimulates a
man to a beast,' says the learned Montesquieu, 'than being among
freemen, himself a slave; for slavery clogs the mind, perverts the
moral faculty,