mutilated slaves shall be brought
against him? When he shall stand confounded and abashed? Or, do we
allude to that punishment, which may be inflicted on them here, as
members of a wicked community? For as a body politick, if its members
are ever so numerous, may be considered as an whole, acting of itself,
and by itself, in all affairs in which it is concerned, so it is
accountable, as such, for its conduct; and as these kinds of polities
have only their existence here, so it is only in this world, that, as
such, they can be punished.

"Now, whether we consider the crime, with respect to the individuals
immediately concerned in this most barbarous and cruel traffick, or
whether we consider it as patronized[115] and encouraged by the laws of
the land, it presents to our view an equal degree of enormity. A crime,
founded on a dreadful pre-eminence in wickedness,--a crime, which being
both of individuals and the nation, must sometime draw down upon us the
heaviest judgment of Almighty God, who made of one blood all the sons of
men, and who gave to all equally a natural right to liberty; and who,
ruling all the kingdoms of the earth with equal providential justice,
cannot suffer such deliberate, such monstrous iniquity, to pass long
unpunished[116]."

But alas! he seems already to have interfered on the occasion! The
violent[117] and supernatural agitations of all the elements, which, for
a series of years, have prevailed in those European settlements, where
the unfortunate _Africans_ are retained in a state of slavery, and
which have brought unspeakable calamities on the inhabitants, and
publick losses on the states to which they severally belong, are so many
awful visitations of God for this inhuman violation of his laws. And it
is not perhaps unworthy of remark, that as the subjects of Great-Britain
have two thirds of this impious commerce in their own hands, so they
have suffered[118] in the same proportion, or more severely than the
rest.

How far these misfortunes may appear to be acts of providence, and to
create an alarm to those who have been accustomed to refer every effect
to its apparent cause; who have been habituated to stop there, and to
overlook the finger of God; because it is slightly covered under the
veil of secondary laws, we will not pretend to determine? but this we
will assert with confidence, that the _Europeans_ have richly
deserved them all; that the fear of sympathy, which can hardly be
rest