ndian
slavery_. But let us now suppose for a moment, that there might be found
an instance or two of slaves enlightened by some pious Missionary, who
would refuse to execute their master's orders on the principle that they
were wrong; even this would not alter our views of the case. For would
not this refusal be so unexampled, so unlooked-for, so immediately
destructive to all authority and discipline, and so provocative of
anger, that it would be followed by _immediate and signal punishment_?
Here then we should have a West Indian master reversing all the laws and
rules of civilized nations, and turning upside down all the morality of
the Gospel by the novel practice of _punishing men for their virtues_.
This new case affords another argument, why a man cannot be born a
proper slave. In fact, the whole system of our planters appears to me to
be so directly in opposition to the whole system of our religion, that I
have no conception, how a man can have been born a slave, such as the
West Indian is; nor indeed have I any conception, how he can be,
rightly, or justly, or properly, a West Indian slave at all. There
appears to me something even impious in the thought; and I am convinced,
that many years will not pass, before the West Indian slavery will
fall, and that future ages will contemplate with astonishment how the
preceding could have tolerated it.

It has now appeared, if I have reasoned conclusively, that the West
Indians have no title to their slaves on the ground of purchase, nor on
the plea of the law of birth, nor on that of any natural right, nor on
that of reason or justice, and that Christianity absolutely annihilates
it. It remains only to show, that they have no title to them on the
ground of _original grants or permissions of Governments_, or of _Acts
of Parliament_, or of _Charters_, or of _English law_.

With respect to original grants or permissions of Governments, the case
is very clear. History informs us, that neither the African slave trade
nor the West Indian slavery would have been allowed, had it not been for
the _misrepresentations_ and _falsehoods_ of those, _who were first
concerned in them_. The Governments of those times were made to believe,
first, that the poor Africans embarked _voluntarily_ on board the ships
which took them from their native land; and secondly, that they were
conveyed to the Colonies principally for _their own benefit_, or out of
_Christian feeling for them_, that th