ites will not be faid, by the most hardy vindicator of the modern Man-Merchant, to have been worse than that to which the children of Ifrael themfelves had been fubjected in Egypt. Of that state they always spoke as a state of the most intolerable oppreffion. In comparison of it, every other fervitude was light. Their deliverance from it, as typical of another and greater deliverance, was called, by way of eminence, their redemption. So powerful was their impreffion of the horrors of this state, that the iron furnace, the furnace of affliction, and fimilar expreffions, feem inadequate to exprefs their conceptions of it; and Egypt, the land of their captivity, is emphatically termed the bouse of bondage: and it is by the recollection of their fuffering in that country, that the Almighty enforced upon them the injunction to be kind to the ftrangers that dwelt among them.

Yet what, after all, was the nature of this Egyptian bondage? Was its dreadful feverity fuch as to diminish the number of flaves, and to require fresh importations to fillup the void which was caufed by exceflive labour, harsh treatment, and fcanty food? By no means. They multiplied fo rapidly as to become an object of terror to their oppreffors from their very increase. Had their labours no known measure or limit, or, was it forced from them at the caprice of an overfeer or driver, by the compelling power of the cart-whip? No fuch thing. It was the fubject of specifick and uniform regulation: tasks were appointed the tale of bricks was previously named. And, as to food, the flesh-pots of Egypt had become proverbial among them.

Having now, as I conceive, incontrovertibly established the radical difference between any flavery which could have existed among the Ifraelites, and that which now exifts in the Weft-Indies, I have at least demolished every thing

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thing like argument in favour of the Scriptural fantion of the African Slave-Trade. I would, therefore, entreat those well-meaning men in this country, who, from unacquaintance with the real ftate of things in the Weft-Indies, have too readily conceded that the fyftem of Weft-Indian bondage has any countenance in Scripture, to retract that conceffion; and to be no longer impofed-upon by the mere fimilarity of a name, when the things are in their nature fo effentially diftin&t. And let not the Man-Merchants, nor their advocates, any longer infult the common fenfe, to fay nothing of the religion, of their country, by arguments fo abfurd and impious.

It will scarcely be expected that, after this confutation of the argument deduced from Scripture in favour of the Slavetrade, I fhould think it neceffary to prove the contrariety of thofe practices to which this trade gives birth, as well as of the principles on which it is founded, to the whole tenor and scope both of the Old and of the New Teftament. That the fpirit of the Chriftian religion stands opposed to the flave-trade is too obvious to require proof; I fhall, therefore, content myself with having rectified the misconceptions which have arifen on this fubject from the ambiguous ufe of the term flavery, and with quoting two or three paffages of Scripture, which feem to have a pretty decifive bearing on the question.

"Therefore all things whatfoever ye would that men fhould do to you, do ye even fo to them; for this is the law and the prophets."

"The law is made for the lawlefs and difobedient; for men-stealers."

"And he that stealeth a man, and felleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall furely be put to death.”

Your's, &c.

AN ABOLITIONIST.

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON NEGRO-SLAVERY.

THE two preceeding Letters concerning the ftate of the Negro-flaves in the Wefl-Indies (of which I do not know who are the authors,) feem to convey a clear and diftinct account of the very harsh and dreadful punishments which are fometimes inflicted on them by cruel mafters, or by the overseers entrusted with the management of them by masters of a different character. But these great abuses of power over them we may reasonably suppose to be not very frequent; and it is almost certain that, now that (by the late act of Parliament for abolishing the Slave-trade,) the Weft-India planters will be deprived of the means of purchafing new Slaves from Africa, the treatment of their present Slaves will be much milder and more careful than before. For it will now be the intereft of their masters not to over-work their Slaves, but to require from them only fuch a moderate degree of labour as will contribute to keep them in health and vigour for many years to come, and enable them to raise families of children to affift them in their fervice to their masters, and supply their places when they die. And for this purpofe, the excellent inftitution of marriage, or fome fimilar and nearly equivalent union between the male and female Slaves, (by allotting one woman to one man, to the exclufion of promifcuous concubinage,) and with a great diminution of the labour of the female Slaves during their pregnancy, will, no doubt, be established in most of the plantations, together with feparate habitations for every married couple, with proper accommodations for rearing their children. And, when thefe changes in the condition of the Negro-Slaves in the West Indies fhall be effected, (which seem to me to be aloft neceflary confe

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confequences of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade,) they will be so much happier than they had been before, that they will almost cease to be objects of compaffion; though it will be still to be wished that they may, in fome future period, and by gradual emancipations of them, by their Mafters, as rewards of their good behaviour and long and faithful fervices, be advanced to the ftill better condition of British freemen. This, however, cannot be done fuddenly, without throwing those Colonies into general confufion; as has been the cafe in the rich and populous French Colony of Saint Domingo, in confequence of a wild, unjust, and, we may venture to fay, mad Decree paffed by the firft French National Affembly, called the Conflituent Assembly, which ordered all the flaves in it to be immediately confidered as freemen. But this was a measure which Mr. Wilberforce, and the late Mr. Charles Fox, and Lord Gren ville, and the other members of Parliament, who have for fo many years contended for the abolition of the Slave-trade, and have at length fucceeded in their noble attempt, always declared to be no part of their plan; nor, as I believe, did any of the friends to the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, out of Parliament as well as in it, throughout the whole Kingdom of Great Britain, ever wish to fee fo unjust and dangerous a project undertaken. It was a measure fit only to be adopted by the wild and wrong-headed enthufiafts of the National Affembly of France, who, under the mildeft and most beneficent of all their kings, the virtuous Lewis the XVIth. (who had already granted to them in the Royal Seffion of the 23d of June, 1789, three weeks before the taking of the Baftille, all the conceffions and privileges effential to the permanent establishment of liberty amongst them, which had ever been wifhed-for by their moft zealous and intelligent patriots,) thought fit to overturn the antient, and well-established Monarchy under which they and their

ancestors

ancestors had lived, and under which they had, but a few years before, been uncommonly fuccefsful in the war they had carried-on against England in support of the revolted English Colonies in North-America. Such a Nation only as France was at that time, under the dominion of a fort of general frenzy that feemed then to have feized them, could think of adopting fo extravagant and ruinous a meafure, The emancipation of the Negro-Slaves that are now in the English Weft-Indian Colonies muft, therefore, be brought-about by gentle degrees, and with the consent, or, rather, by the fingle and feparate acts, of their feveral mafters. And the best method of effecting this further happy change in their condition that I have any where met-with, is that which is described by Lieutenant John Harriott, in the 36th chapter of his curious and valuable History of his own Life and Adventures, published in two small volumes in duodecimo, in the year 1807, under the title of Struggles through Life, which I have read with great pleasure, and believe to be a very fair and faithful narrative of the several adventures and undertakings in which he has been engaged, and in which he has exhibited great proofs of Courage, Industry, found Judgement, Benevolence, and Publick fpirit, and has given excellent advice to prevent English farmers from leaving Old-England to go to NorthAmerica, and fettle there as Land-owners, in the hopes of being foon poffeffed of fome hundreds of acres of good land, brought into good cultivation; which hopes, he well observes, will, most probably, be grievously disappointed. What he has said upon this fubject brought to my recollection the following query of Doctor Berkley, the famous Bishop of Cloyne, in the former half of the last Century. Query, "whether it is not poffible that a man may be lawful owner, in poffeffion, of a tract of land containing twenty thoufand acres, and the land very good and capable of producing