requently found, that their _passion_ has entirely got the better
of their _interest_, and they have murdered all without any
discrimination, either of age or sex." Such may be presumed to be the
case with the no less savage _receivers_. Impressed with the most
haughty and tyrannical notions, easily provoked, accustomed to indulge
their anger, and, above all, habituated to scenes of cruelty, and unawed
by the fear of laws, they will hardly be found to be exempt from the
common failings of human nature, and to spare an unlucky slave, at a
time when men of cooler temper, and better regulated passions, are so
frequently blind to their own interest.

But if _passion_ may be supposed to be generally more than a
ballance for _interest_, how must the scale be turned in favour of
the melancholy picture exhibited, when we reflect that
_self-preservation_ additionally steps in, and demands the most
_rigorous severity_. For when we consider that where there is
_one_ master, there are _fifty_ slaves; that the latter have
been all forcibly torn from their country, and are retained in their
present situation by violence; that they are perpetually at war in their
hearts with their oppressors, and are continually cherishing the seeds
of revenge; it is evident that even _avarice_ herself, however cool
and deliberate, however free from passion and caprice, must sacrifice
her own sordid feelings, and adopt a system of tyranny and oppression,
which it must be ruinous to pursue.

Thus then, if no picture had been drawn of the situation of slaves, and
it had been left solely to every man's sober judgment to determine, what
it might probably be, he would conclude, that if the situation were
justly described, the page must be frequently stained with acts of
uncommon cruelty.

It remains only to make a reply to an objection, that is usually
advanced against particular instances of cruelty to slaves, as recorded
by various writers. It is said that "some of these are so inconceivably,
and beyond all example inhuman, that their very excess above the common
measure of cruelty shews them at once exaggerated and incredible." But
their credibility shall be estimated by a supposition. Let us suppose
that the following instance had been recorded by a writer of the highest
reputation, "that the master of a ship, bound to the western colonies
with slaves, on a presumption that many of them would die, selected an
_hundred and thirty two_ of the most sic