in the
general view, without descending to such minute particulars as would
distinguish one method from another.

Common to all of these is one general principle that, as the goods to be
conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered in
the conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage to
his trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own baggage,
very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up with
convenience to himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers and
goods, but of goods and passengers.

Secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or rather
of subjection, in the society, by which the passenger becomes bound in
allegiance to his conveyer. This allegiance is indeed only temporary
and local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in
Great Britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the liberties
of a free people, nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not move
downwards; a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible
to all kinds of slavery; for Aristotle in his Politics hath proved
abundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves, except
barbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves barbarians; and
indeed Mr. Montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the case
of the Africans; the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave,
unless to him who is able to make him so.

Thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect
resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; after
which resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no more
power over his own will than an Asiatic slave, or an English wife, by
the laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. If I
should mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readers
would recognize the truth of what I have here observed; all, indeed,
that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who in this free
country is as absolute as a Turkish bashaw. In two particulars only his
power is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you
enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at a
certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, if
God permit, but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under his
government; he carries you how he will, when he will, and whither he
will, provided it be not