es committed by the
Negroes, not merely against their masters, but even against others, will be
attributed at the bar of eternal justice, to the slaveholders, and those
infamous persons employed in the Guinea trade. I firmly believe, that no
human justice has the right of putting a Negro slave to death for any crime
whatever, because not being free, he is not sui juris, and should be
regarded as a child or an idiot, being almost always under the lash. I
believe that the real criminal, the cause of the crime, is the man who
first seized him, sold him, or enslaved him.--And if ever I should fall
under the knife of an unhappy runaway, I would not resent it upon him but
upon those white men who keep blacks in slavery. I would tell them, your
cruelty towards your Negroes, has endangered my life--they execrate you,
they take me for a tyrant because I am white like you, and the vengeance
due to your crimes has fallen upon me.

God forbid, however, that I should undertake to encourage the blacks to
take up arms against their masters! God forbid, however, that I should
undertake to justify the excesses to which their resentments have sometimes
hurried them, and which have often fallen on persons who were not accessary
to their wretchedness! The slavery under which they groan, must be
abolished by peaceable means; and thanks to the active spirit of
benevolence which animates the Quakers, the pious undertaking is already
begun. In most of the United States of America, the yoke has been taken
from their necks; in others the Guinea-trade has been prohibited. Societies
have been formed both at Paris and London, to collect and circulate
information upon this interesting subject, to induce the European
governments to put a stop to the Negro trade, and provide for their gradual
emancipation in the West-India islands: No doubt success will crown their
views, and the friends of liberty will enjoy the satisfaction of
communicating its blessings to the blacks.

But the blacks must wait for the happy moment that shall restore them to
civil life, in silence and in peace; they must rely upon the unwearied
diligence and zeal of the numerous writers who advocate their cause, and
the efforts of the humane to second their endeavors; they must strive to
justify and support the arguments that are adduced in their favour, by
displaying virtue in the very bosom of slavery; they must endeavour, in a
word, to render themselves worthy of liberty, that th