compels with their wives and families to a wretched _servitude?_ He
acts surely, as if the use of empire consisted in violence and
oppression; as if he, that was most exalted, ought, of necessity, to be
most unjust. Here then the voice of _nature_ and _justice_ is
against him. He breaks that law of _nature_, which ordains, "that no
just man shall be given into slavery, against his own _consent_:"
he violates the first law of _justice_, as established among men,
"that no person shall do harm to another without a previous and
sufficient _provocation_;" and he violates also the sacred
condition of _empire_, made with his ancestors, and necessarily
understood in every species of government, "that, the power of the
multitude being given up to the wisdom and justice of the prince, they
may experience, in return, the most effectual protection from injury,
the highest advantages of society, the greatest possible
_happiness_."

But if kings then, to whom their own people have granted dominion and
power, are unable to invade the liberties of their harmless subjects,
without the highest _injustice_; how can those private persons be
justified, who treacherously lie in wait for their fellow-creatures, and
sell them into slavery? What arguments can they possibly bring in
their defence? What treaty of empire can they produce, by which their
innocent victims ever resigned to them the least portion of their
_liberty_? In vain will they plead the _antiquity_ of the
custom: in vain will the _honourable_ light, in which _piracy_
was considered in the ages of barbarism, afford them an excuse. Impious
and abandoned men! ye invade the liberties of those, who, (with respect
to your impious selves) are in a state of _nature_, in a state of
original _dissociation_, perfectly _independent_, perfectly
_free_.

It appears then, that the two orders of slaves, which have been
mentioned in the history of the African servitude, "of those who are
publickly seized by virtue of the authority of their prince; and of
those, who are privately kidnapped by individuals," are collected by
means of violence and oppression; by means, repugnant to _nature_,
the principles of _government_, and the common notions of
_equity_, as established among men.

* * * * *

CHAP. VI.

We come now to the third order of _involuntary_ slaves, "to
convicts." The only argument that the sellers advance here, is this,
"that they have