on_! The lion does not
imbrue his claws in blood, unless called upon by hunger, or provoked by
interruption; whereas the merciless Dutch, more savage than the brutes
themselves, not only murder their fellow-creatures without any
provocation or necessity, but even make a diversion of their sufferings,
and enjoy their pain.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 030: The following short history of the African servitude, is
taken from Astley's Collection of Voyages, and from the united
testimonies of Smyth, Adanson, Bosman, Moore, and others, who were
agents to the different factories established there; who resided many
years in the country; and published their respective histories at their
return. These writers, if they are partial at all, may be considered as
favourable rather to their own countrymen, than the unfortunate
Africans.]

[Footnote 031: We would not wish to be understood, that slavery was
unknown in Africa before the _piratical_ expeditions of the
_Portuguese_, as it appears from the _Nubian's Geography_,
that both the slavery and commerce had been established among the
natives with one another. We mean only to assert, that the
_Portuguese_ were the first of the _Europeans_, who made their
_piratical_ expeditions, and shewed the way to that _slavery_,
which now makes so disgraceful a figure in the western colonies of the
_Europeans_. In the term "Europeans," wherever it shall occur in
the remaining part of this first dissertation, we include the
_Portuguese_, and _those nations only_, who followed their
example.]

[Footnote 032: The _Portuguese_ erected their first fort at
_D'Elmina_, in the year 1481, about forty years after Alonzo
Gonzales had pointed the Southern Africans out to his countrymen
as articles of commerce.]

[Footnote 033: In the ancient servitude, we reckoned _convicts_
among the _voluntary_ slaves, because they had it in their power,
by a virtuous conduct, to have avoided so melancholy a situation; in the
_African_, we include them in the _involuntary_, because, as
virtues are frequently construed into crimes, from the venal motives of
the traffick, no person whatever possesses such a _power_ or
_choice_.]

[Footnote 034: Andrew Sparrman, M.D. professor of Physick at Stockholm,
fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden, and inspector of its
cabinet of natural history, whose voyage was translated into English,
and published in 1785.]