ater is
your crime, who are _robbers of human liberty_!

The next charge which you exhibit against them, is general, it is that
of _rebellion_; a crime of such a latitude, that you can impose it
upon almost every action, and of such a nature, that you always annex to
it the most excruciating pain. But what a contradiction is this to
common sense! Have the wretched Africans formally resigned their
freedom? Have you any other claim upon their obedience, than that of
force? If then they are your subjects, you violate the laws of
government, by making them unhappy. But if they are not your subjects,
then, even though they should resist your proceedings, they are not
_rebellious_.

But what do you say to that long catalogue of offences, which you
punish, and of which no people but yourselves take cognizance at all?
You say that the wisdom of legislation has inserted it in the colonial
laws, and that you punish by authority. But do you allude to that
execrable code, that _authorises murder_? that tempts an unoffended
person to kill the slave, that abhors and flies your service? that
delegates a power, which no host of men, which not all the world, can
possess?--

Or,--What do you say to that daily unmerited severity, which you
consider only as common discipline? Here you say that the Africans are
vicious, that they are all of them ill-disposed, that you must of
necessity be severe. But can they be well-disposed to their oppressors?
In their own country they were just, generous, hospitable: qualities,
which all the African historians allow them eminently to possess. If
then they are vicious, they must have contracted many of their vices
from yourselves; and as to their own native vices, if any have been
imported with them, are they not amiable, when compared with yours?

Thus then do the excuses, which have been hitherto made by the
_receivers_, force a relation of such circumstances, as makes their
conduct totally inexcusable, and, instead of diminishing at all, highly
aggravates their guilt.

* * * * *

CHAP. VII.

We come now to that other system of reasoning, which is always applied,
when the former is confuted; "that the Africans are an inferiour link of
the chain of nature, and are made for slavery."

This assertion is proved by two arguments; the first of which was
advanced also by the ancients, and is drawn from the _inferiority of
their capacities_.

Let us allow t