ceivers_, when stripped of their glossy
ornaments, are but empty declamation.

It is said, first, of _military punishments_, that they are more
severe than those which the _Africans_ undergo. But this is a bare
assertion without a proof. It is not shewn even by those, who assert it,
how the fact can be made out. We are left therefore to draw the
comparison ourselves, and to fill up those important considerations,
which we have just said that the _receivers_ had omitted.

That military punishments are severe we confess, but we deny that they
are severer than those with which they are compared. Where is the
military man, whose ears have been slit, whose limbs have been
mutilated, or whose eyes have been beaten out? But let us even allow,
that their punishments are equal in the degree of their severity: still
they must lose by comparison. The soldier is never punished but after a
fair and equitable trial, and the decision of a military court; the
unhappy African, at the discretion of his Lord. The one knows what
particular conduct will constitute an offence[097]; the other has no
such information, as he is wholly at the disposal of passion and
caprice, which may impose upon any action, however laudable, the
appellation of a crime. The former has it of course in his power to
avoid a punishment; the latter is never safe. The former is punished for
a real, the latter, often, for an imaginary fault.

Now will any person assert, on comparing the whole of those
circumstances together, which relate to their respective punishments,
that there can be any doubt, which of the two are in the worst
situation, as to their penal systems?

With respect to the declaration, that the life of an _African_ in
the colonies is happier than that of an _English_ peasant, it is
equally false. Indeed we can scarcely withhold our indignation, when we
consider, how shamefully the situation of this latter class of men has
been misrepresented, to elevate the former to a state of fictitious
happiness. If the representations of the _receivers_ be true, it
is evident that those of the most approved writers, who have placed a
considerable share of happiness in the _cottage_, have been
mistaken in their opinion; and that those of the rich, who have been
heard to sigh, and envy the felicity of the _peasant_, have been
treacherous to their own sensations.

But which are we to believe on the occasion? Those, who endeavour to
dress _vice_ in the habit of _