at the mere toleration of such an
instrument of torture, in any country, is a clear indication, _that
this wretched class of men do not there enjoy the protection of any
laws, that may be pretended to have been enacted in their favour_."

Such then is the general situation of the unfortunate Africans. They are
beaten and tortured at discretion. They are badly clothed. They are
miserably fed. Their drudgery is intense and incessant and their rest
short. For scarcely are their heads reclined, scarcely have their bodies
a respite from the labour of the day, or the cruel hand of the overseer,
but they are summoned to renew their sorrows. In this manner they go on
from year to year, in a state of the lowest degradation, without a
single law to protect them, without the possibility of redress, without
a hope that their situation will be changed, unless death should
terminate the scene.

Having described the general situation of these unfortunate people, we
shall now take notice of the common consequences that are found to
attend it, and relate them separately, as they result either from long
and painful _labour_, a _want_ of the common necessaries of
life, or continual _severity_.

Oppressed by a daily task of such immoderate labour as human nature is
utterly unable to perform, many of them run away from their masters.
They fly to the recesses of the mountains, where they choose rather to
live upon any thing that the soil affords them, nay, the very soil
itself, than return to that _happy situation_, which is represented
by the _receivers_, as the condition of a slave.

It sometimes happens, that the manager of a mountain plantation, falls
in with one of these; he immediately seizes him, and threatens to carry
him to his former master, unless he will consent to live on the mountain
and cultivate his ground. When his plantation is put in order, he
carries the delinquent home, abandons him to all the suggestions of
despotick rage, and accepts a reward for his _honesty_. The unhappy
wretch is chained, scourged, tortured; and all this, because he obeyed
the dictates of nature, and wanted to be free. And who is there, that
would not have done the same thing, in the same situation? Who is there,
that has once known the charms of liberty; that would not fly from
despotism? And yet, by the impious laws of the _receivers_, the
absence[066] of six months from the lash of tyranny is--_death_.

But this law is even mild, when compar