ates in America,
and that the superiority, such as it is, of the white race, is only kept
up by intercourse with Europe. Look at the atrocities in their ships.
Look at their Congress and their Courts of Justice; debaters in the
first; suitors, even advocates, sometimes judges, in the second,
settling their arguments with pistol and dagger. Look at their
extensions of slavery, and their revivals of the slave-trade, now
covertly, soon to be openly. If it were possible that the two worlds
could be absolutely dissevered for a century, I think a new Columbus
would find nothing in America but savages.
_Lord Curryfin._ You look at America, doctor, through your hatred of
slavery. You must remember that we introduced it when they were our
colonists. It is not so easily got rid of. Its abolition by France
exterminated the white race in St. Domingo, as the white race had
exterminated the red. Its abolition by England ruined our West Indian
colonies.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Yes, in conjunction with the direct
encouragement of foreign slave labour, given by our friends of liberty
under the pretext of free trade. It is a mockery to keep up a squadron
for suppressing the slave-trade on the one hand, while, on the other
hand, we encourage it to an extent that counteracts in a tenfold
degree the apparent power of suppression. It is a clear case of false
pretension.
_Mr. Gryll._ You know, doctor, the Old World had slavery throughout its
entire extent; under the Patriarchs, the Greeks, the Romans; everywhere
in short. Cicero thought our island not likely to produce anything worth
having, excepting slaves;{1} and of those none skilled, as some slaves
were, in letters and music, but all utterly destitute of both. And in
the Old World the slaves were of the same race with the masters. The
Negroes are an inferior race, not fit, I am afraid, for anything else.
1 Etiam illud jam cognitum est, neque argenti scripulum esse
ullum in ilia insula, neque ullam spem praedae, nisi ex
mancipiis: ex quibus nullos puto te literis aut musicis
eruditos expectare.--Cicero: ad Atticum, iv. 16.
A hope is expressed by Pomponius Mela, 1. iii, c. 6 (he
wrote under Claudius), that, by the success of the Roman
arms, the island and its savage inhabitants would soon be
better known. It is amusing enough to peruse such passages
in the midst of London.--Gibbon: c. i.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Not fit, perhaps, fo
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