e, who were there for three or four years during the
late war.]

* * * * *

CHAP. V.

Some people may suppose, from the melancholy account that has been given
in the preceding chapter, that we have been absolutely dealing in
romance: that the scene exhibited is rather a dreary picture of the
imagination, than a representation of fact. Would to heaven, for the
honour of human nature, that this were really the case! We wish we could
say, that we have no testimony to produce for any of our assertions, and
that our description of the general treatment of slaves has been greatly
exaggerated.

But the _receivers_, notwithstanding the ample and disinterested
evidence, that can be brought on the occasion, do not admit the
description to be true. They say first, "that if the slavery were such
as has been now represented, no human being could possibly support it
long." Melancholy truth! the wretched Africans generally perish in their
prime. Let them reflect upon the prodigious supplies that are
_annually_ required, and their argument will be nothing less than a
confession, that the slavery has been justly depicted.

They appeal next to every man's own reason, and desire him to think
seriously, whether "self-interest will not always restrain the master
from acts of cruelty to the slave, and whether such accounts therefore,
as the foregoing, do not contain within themselves, their own
refutation." We answer, "No." For if this restraining principle be as
powerful as it is imagined, why does not the general conduct of men
afford us a better picture? What is imprudence, or what is vice, but a
departure from every man's own interest, and yet these are the
characteristicks of more than half the world?--

--But, to come more closely to the present case, _self-interest_
will be found but a weak barrier against the sallies of _passion_:
particularly where it has been daily indulged in its greatest latitude,
and there are no laws to restrain its calamitous effects. If the
observation be true, that passion is a short madness, then it is evident
that self-interest, and every other consideration, must be lost, so long
as it continues. We cannot have a stronger instance of this, than in a
circumstance related in the second part of this Essay, "that though the
Africans have gone to war for the express purpose of procuring slaves,
yet so great has been their resentment at the resistance they have
f