devoted a
considerable part of his time to their instruction. This great man, for
we cannot but mention him with veneration, had a better opportunity of
knowing them than any person whatever, and he always uniformly declared,
that he could never find a difference between their capacities and those
of other people; that they were as capable of reasoning as any
individual Europeans; that they were as capable of the highest
intellectual attainments; in short, that their abilities were equal, and
that they only wanted to be equally cultivated, to afford specimens of
as fine productions.

Thus then does it appear from the testimony of this venerable man,
whose authority is sufficient of itself to silence all objections
against African capacity, and from the instances that have been
produced, and the observations that have been made on the occasion, that
if the minds of the Africans were unbroken by slavery; if they had the
same expectations in life as other people, and the same opportunities of
improvement, they would be equal; in all the various branches of
science, to the Europeans, and that the argument that states them "to be
an inferiour link of the chain of nature, and designed for servitude,"
as far as it depends on the _inferiority of their capacities_, is
wholly malevolent and false[072].

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 069: Phillis Wheatley, negro slave to Mr. John Wheatley, of
Boston, in New-England.]

[Footnote 070:
Lest it should be doubted whether these Poems are genuine, we shall
transcribe the names of those, who signed a certificate of their
authenticity.

His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Governor.
The Honourable Andrew Oliver, Lieutenant Governor.

The Hon. Thomas Hubbard
The Hon. John Erving
The Hon. James Pitts
The Hon. Harrison Gray
The Hon. James Bowdoin
John Hancock, Esq.
Joseph Green, Esq.
Richard Carey, Esq.
The Rev. Cha. Chauncy, D.D.
The Rev. Mather Byles, D.D.
The Rev. Ed. Pemberton, D.D.
The Rev. Andrew Elliot, D.D.
The Rev. Sam. Cooper, D.D.
The Rev. Samuel Mather
The Rev. John Moorhead
Mr. John Wheatley, her Master.
]

[Footnote 071: In the Preface.]

[Footnote 072: As to Mr. Hume's assertions with respect to African
capacity, we have passed them over in silence, as they have been so
admirably refuted by the learned Dr. Beattie, in his Essay on Truth, to
which we refer the reader. The whole of this admirable refutation