40 MORAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 



In * the mean time cargoes of slaves are almost 

 weekly landed in the neighbourhood of Bahia : the 

 thousand evils of the vile system are each day in- 

 creasing, and with a rapid but unregarded footstep 

 the fearful hour steals on, when a terrible reckoning 

 of unrestrained revenge will repay all the accumu- 

 lated wrongs of the past, and write in characters of 

 blood an awful warning for the future ! 



80 far as we could learn, no attempts are made 

 by the masters to introduce the blessings of Chris- 

 tianity among those whom they deprive of temporal 

 freedom. The slave is treated as a valuable animal 

 and nothing more : the claims of his kindred huma- 

 nity so far forgotten as they relate to his first un- 

 alienable right of personal freedom, are not likely to 

 be remembered in his favour, in what concerns his 

 coheritage in the sublime sacrifice of atonement once 

 freely offered for us all ! He toils through long and 

 weary years, cheered by no other hope than the far 

 distant and oft delusive expectation that a dearly pur- 

 chased freedom — if for freedom's blessings any price 

 can be too costly — will enable him to look once more 

 upon the land of his nativity; and then close his 

 eyes, surrounded by the loved few whom the ties 

 of kindred endear even to his rude nature. 



It would swell this portion of the work to an 

 unreasonable extent, to give any lengthened details 

 of the working of a system, about which among my 

 readers no two opinions can exist. Let it suffice to 

 say, that the Europeans are generally better and 



