1750 the reverend Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy, in
Barbadoes, published his Natural History of that island. He took an
opportunity, in the course of it, of laying open to the world the miserable
situation of the poor Africans, and the waste of them by hard labour and
other cruel means, and he had the generosity to vindicate their capacities
from the charge, which they who held them in bondage brought against them,
as a justification of their own wickedness in continuing to deprive them of
the rights of men.

Edmund Burke, in his account of the European settlements, (for this work is
usually attributed to him,) complains "that the Negroes in our colonies
endure a slavery more complete, and attended with far worse circumstances,
than what any people in their condition suffer in any other part of the
world, or have suffered in any other period of time. Proofs of this are not
wanting. The prodigious waste, which we experience in this unhappy part of
our species, is a full and melancholy evidence of this truth." And he goes
on to advise the planters for the sake of their own interest to behave like
good men, good masters, and good Christians, and to impose less labour upon
their slaves, and to give them recreation on some of the grand festivals,
and to instruct them in religion, as certain preventives of their decrease.

An anonymous author of a pamphlet, entitled, An Essay in Vindication of the
Continental Colonies of America, seems to have come forward next. Speaking
of slavery there, he says, "It is shocking to humanity, violative of every
generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the Christian religion--There
cannot be a more dangerous maxim than that necessity is a plea for
injustice, for who shall fix the degree of this necessity? What villain so
atrocious, who may not urge this excuse, or, as Milton has happily
expressed it,

"And with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excuse his dev'lish deed?"

"That our colonies," he continues, "want people, is a very weak argument
for so inhuman a violation of justice--Shall a civilized, a Christian
nation encourage slavery, because the barbarous, savage, lawless African
hath done it? To what end do we profess a religion whose dictates we so
flagrantly violate? Wherefore have we that pattern of goodness and
humanity, if we refuse to follow it? How long shall we continue a practice
which policy rejects, justice condemns, and piety revolts at?"

The