a father, a wife the property of a husband, a
domestic the property of a master, a Negro the property of a planter?"

But I have no time to follow this animated author, even by short
extracts, through the varied strains of eloquence which he displays upon
this occasion. I can only say that his labours entitle him to a high
station among the benefactors to the African race.

The third was Dr. PALEY, whose genius, talents, and learning have been
so eminently displayed in his writings in the cause of natural and
revealed religion. Dr. Paley did not write any essay expressly in favour
of the Africans. But in his _Moral Philosophy_, where he treated on
slavery, he took an opportunity of condemning, in very severe terms, the
continuance of it. In this work he defined what slavery was, and how it
might arise consistently with the law of nature; but he made an
exception against that which arose from the African trade. "The Slave
Trade," says he, "upon the coast of Africa, is not excused by these
principles. When slaves in that country are brought to market, no
questions, I believe, are asked about the origin or justice of the
vendor's title. It may be presumed, therefore, that this title is not
always, if it be ever, founded in any of the causes above assigned.

"But defect of right in the first purchase is the least crime with which
this traffic is chargeable. The natives are excited to war and mutual
depredation, for the sake of supplying their contracts, or furnishing
the markets with slaves. With this the wickedness begins. The slaves,
torn away from their parents, wives, and children, from their friends
and companions, from their fields and flocks, from their home and
country, are transported to the European settlements in America, with no
other accommodation on ship-board than what is provided for brutes. This
is the second stage of the cruelty, from which the miserable exiles are
delivered, only to be placed, and that for life, in subjection to a
dominion add system of laws, the most merciless and tyrannical that ever
were tolerated upon the face of the earth: and from all that can be
learned by the accounts of people upon the spot, the inordinate
authority which the plantation-laws confer upon the slaveholder is
exercised, by the English slaveholder especially, with rigour and
brutality.

"But necessity is pretended, the name under which every enormity is
attempted to be justified; and after all, what is the necessit