y
imagine to be so enormous, as to be worthy of so great a punishment?

How contrary then to reason, justice, and nature, must those act, who
apply this, the severest of human punishments, to the most insignificant
offence! yet such is the custom with the Africans: for, from the time,
in which the Europeans first intoxicated the African princes with their
foreign draughts, no crime has been committed, no shadow of a crime
devised, that has not immediately been punished with _servitude_.

But for what purpose is the punishment applied? Is it applied to amend
the manners of the criminal, and thus render him a better subject? No,
for if you banish him, he can no longer be a subject, and you can no
longer therefore be solicitous for his morals. Add to this, that if you
banish him to a place, where he is to experience the hardships of want
and hunger (so powerfully does hunger compel men to the perpetration of
crimes) you force him rather to corrupt, than amend his manners, and to
be wicked, when he might otherwise be just.

Is it applied then, that others may be deterred from the same
proceedings, and that crimes may become less frequent? No, but that
_avarice_ may be gratified; that the prince may experience the
emoluments of the sale: for, horrid and melancholy thought! the more
crimes his subjects commit, the richer is he made; the more
_abandoned_ the subject, the _happier_ is the prince!

Neither can we allow that the punishment thus applied, tends in any
degree to answer _publick happiness_; for if men can be sentenced
to slavery, right or wrong; if shadows can be turned into substances,
and virtues into crimes; it is evident that none can be happy, because
none can be secure.

But if the punishment is infinitely greater than the offence, (which has
been shewn before) and if it is inflicted, neither to amend the
criminal, nor to deter others from the same proceedings, nor to advance,
in any degree, the happiness of the publick, it is scarce necessary to
observe, that it is totally unjust, since it is repugnant to
_reason_, the dictates of _nature_, and the very principles of
_government_.

* * * * *

CHAP. VII.

We come now to the fourth and last order of slaves, to _prisoners of
war_. As the _sellers_ lay a particular stress on this order of
men, and infer much, from its _antiquity_, in support of the
justice of their cause, we shall examine the principle, on which i