had stated in his evidence, that a boy had been put to death at Cabenda,
because there were those who refused to purchase him as a slave. This
single story was deemed by him, and had been considered by others, as a
sufficient proof of the barbarity of the Africans, and of the inutility
of abolishing the Slave Trade. But they, who had used this fact, had
suppressed several circumstances relating to it. It appeared, on
questioning Captain Frazer afterward, that this boy had previously run
away from his master three several times; that the master had to pay his
value, according to the custom of the country, every time he was brought
back; and that partly from anger at the boy for running away so
frequently, and partly to prevent a repetition of the same expense, he
determined to destroy him. Such was the explanation of the signal
instance, which was to fix barbarity on all Africa, as it came out in
the cross-examination of Captain Frazer. That this African master was
unenlightened and barbarous, he freely admitted; but what would an
enlightened and civilized West Indian have done in a similar case? He
would quote the law, passed in the West Indies in 1722, which he had
just cast his eye upon in the book of evidence, by which law this very
same crime of running away was by the legislature, of an island, by the
grave and deliberate sentence of an enlightened legislature, punished
with death; and this, not in the case only of the third offence, but
even in the very first instance. It was enacted, "That, if any Negro or
other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six
months, or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that
time, every such person should suffer death." There was also another
West Indian law, by which every Negro was armed against his fellow
Negro, for he was authorized to kill every runaway slave; and he had
even a reward held out to him for so doing. Let the House now contrast
the two cases. Let them ask themselves which of the two exhibited the
greater barbarity; and whether they could possibly vote for the
continuance of the Slave Trade, upon the principle that the Africans had
shown themselves to be a race of incorrigible barbarians?

Something like an opposite argument, but with a like view, had been
maintained by others on this subject. It had been said, in justification
of the trade, that the Africans had derived some little civilization
from their intercourse with us.