found their
companions were condemned to die, they avowed the fact, and exculpated
all others from any share in the deed. Was not this true magnanimity?
Can you help respecting those negroes? If you can, I pity you.

Since the condition of slaves is such as I have described, are you
surprised at occasional insurrections? You may _regret_ it most deeply;
but _can_ you wonder at it. The famous Captain Smith, when he was a
slave in Tartary, killed his overseer and made his escape. I never heard
him blamed for it--it seems to be universally considered a simple act of
self-defence. The same thing has often occurred with regard to white men
taken by the Algerines.

The Poles have shed Russian "blood enough to float our navy;" and we
admire and praise them, because they did it in resistance of oppression.
Yet they have suffered less than black slaves, all the world over,
are suffering. We honor our forefathers because they rebelled against
certain principles dangerous to political freedom; yet from actual,
personal tyranny, they suffered nothing: the negro on the contrary, is
suffering all that oppression _can_ make human nature suffer. Why do we
execrate in one set of men, what we laud so highly in another? I shall
be reminded that insurrections and murders are totally at variance with
the precepts of our religion; and this is most true. But according to
this rule, the Americans, Poles, Parisians, Belgians, and all who have
shed blood for the sake of liberty, are more to blame than the negroes;
for the former are more enlightened, and can always have access to the
fountain of religion; while the latter are kept in a state of brutal
ignorance--not allowed to read their Bibles--knowing nothing of
Christianity, except the examples of their masters, who profess to be
governed by its maxims.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood on this point. I am not vindicating
insurrections and murders; the very thought makes my blood run cold. I
believe revenge is _always_ wicked; but I say, what the laws of every
country acknowledge, that great provocations are a palliation of great
crimes. When a man steals food because he is starving, we are more
disposed to pity, than to blame him. And what _can_ human nature do,
subject to continual and oppressive wrong--hopeless of change--not only
unprotected by law, but the law itself changed into an enemy--and to
complete the whole, shut out from the instructions and consolations
of the Gospel! No