ell convinced of. The
Greenlanders, for instance, see that the Europeans who visit them are
much inferior to themselves in the art of managing a boat or catching
seals; in short, in everything which they find most useful to support
life. For this reason, they consider them all with very great contempt,
and look upon them as little better than barbarians.

_Tommy._--That is very impertinent indeed; and I should like to convince
them of their folly.

_Mr Barlow._--Why, do not you look upon yourself as much superior to
your black servants; and have I not often heard you express great
contempt for them?

_Tommy._--I do not despise them now, so much as I used to do. Besides,
sir, I only think myself something better, because I have been brought
up like a gentleman.

_Mr Barlow._--A gentleman! I have never exactly understood what a
gentleman is, according to your notions.

_Tommy._--Why, sir, when a person is not brought up to work, and has
several people to wait upon him, like my father and mother, then he is a
gentleman.

_Mr Barlow._--And then he has a right to despise others, has he?

_Tommy._--I do not say that, sir, neither. But he is, however, superior
to them.

_Mr Barlow._--Superior, in what? In the art of cultivating the ground to
raise food, and making clothes or houses?

_Tommy._--No, sir, not that; for gentlemen never plough the ground or
build houses.

_Mr Barlow._--Is he then superior in knowledge? Were you, who have been
brought up a gentleman, superior to all the rest of the world when you
came here?

_Tommy._--To be sure, sir; when I came here I did not know so much as I
do now.

_Mr Barlow._--If then you, when you knew nothing, and could do nothing,
thought yourself superior to all the rest of the world, why should you
wonder, that men who really excel others in those things which they see
absolutely necessary, should have the same good opinion of themselves?
Were you to be in Greenland, for instance, how would you prove your own
superiority and importance?

_Tommy._--I would tell them that I had always been well brought up at
home.

_Mr Barlow._--That they would not believe. They would say that they saw
you were totally unable to do anything useful--to guide a boat; to swim
the seas; to procure yourself the least sustenance--so that you would
perish with hunger, if they did not charitably afford you now and then a
bit of whale or seal; and, as to your being a gentleman, they would not