because he could not work, this same master, in the
same spirit of perversion, which extorts from Scripture a justification
of the Slave Trade, had fulfilled the apostolic maxim, that he should
have nothing to eat. The use he meant to make of this instance was to
show the unprotected state of the slaves. What must it be, where such an
instance could pass not only unpunished, but almost unregarded! If, in
the streets of London, but a dog were to be seen lacerated like this
miserable man, how would the cruelty of the wretch be execrated, who had
thus even abused a brute!

The judicial punishments also inflicted upon the Negro showed the low
estimation, in which, in consequence of the strength of old customs and
deep-rooted prejudices, they were held. Mr. Edwards, in his speech to
the Assembly at Jamaica, stated the following case, as one which had
happened in one of the rebellions there. Some slaves surrounded the
dwelling-house of their mistress. She was in bed with a lovely infant.
They deliberated upon the means of putting her to death in torment. But
in the end one of them reserved her for his mistress; and they killed
her infant with an axe before her face. "Now," says Mr. Edwards,
(addressing himself to his audience) "you will think that no torments
were too great for such horrible excesses. Nevertheless I am of a
different opinion. I think that death, unaccompanied with cruelty,
should be the utmost exertion of human authority over our unhappy
fellow-creatures." Torments, however, were always inflicted in these
cases. The punishment was gibbeting alive, and exposing the delinquents
to perish by the gradual effects of hunger, thirst, and parching sun; in
which situation they were known to suffer for nine days, with a
fortitude scarcely credible, never uttering a single groan. But horrible
as the excesses might have been, which occasioned these punishments, it
must be remembered, that they were committed by ignorant savages, who
had been dragged from all they held most dear; whose patience had been
exhausted by a cruel and loathsome confinement during their
transportation; and whose resentment had been wound up to the highest
pitch of fury by the lash of the driver.

But he would now mention another instance, by way of contrast, out of
the evidence. A child on board a slave-ship, of about ten months old,
took sulk and would not eat. The captain flogged it with a cat; swearing
that he would make it eat, or kill it. F