168 political progrefs of Eritain. April ^ 



*' lip V. conveyed to Britain the Afsiento^ or contract 

 *' for supplying the Spanifli colonies with negroes, 

 " which had formerly been enjoyed by France *." 

 What a strange source of enjotment ! While milli- 

 ons of acres in this island were lying waste, or at best 

 were but half cultivated ; while, as the poet says, 



The world was all before us where to chuse 

 Our place of rest, 



•we accepted, as the price of our blood and our vic- 

 tories, an employment of the basest, the most pes- 

 tiferous, and brutal description ; an employment, 

 .compared to which that of a common pirate is inno- 

 cence itself! and that of a common executioner is 

 .even the summit of human dignity ! With a mean- 

 nefs, which had no temptation, and which has, I be- 

 lieve, no paralell in history, we accepted of an eiii- 

 ployment which our vanquiflied enemies disdained to 

 perform ; an employment where every step was to 

 be marked with treachery and murder, and which 

 neither Cato nor Phocion could have exercised for a 

 single day without deserving a halter. What must 

 our posterity say or feel at the reproach of having 

 descended from such abominable ancestors ? It is 

 time to despise the flimsy refinements of false po- 

 litenefs. Let us forbear to hoodwink our under- 

 standings, nor let us, like the fabled daughters of 

 Pelias, avert our eyes while plunging the dagger of 

 parricide. Let us look boldly into the face of this 

 bloody businefs, and read, in the immortal characters 



• Robertso 's hlstni v of America B. vlii. It is painful to observe, 

 that so ne o/.our neighbours, have neither more jtnse nor humanity th»n 



,«vsclve;. 



