500 SLAVERY. [CHAP. xxi. 



met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety 

 of the negro, as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such 

 people have generally visited at the houses of the upper classes, 

 where the domestic slaves are usually well treated ; and they 

 have not, like myself, lived amongst the lower classes. Such 

 enquirers will ask slaves about their condition ; they forget that 

 the slave must indeed be dull, who does not calculate on the 

 chance of his answer reaching his master's ears. 



It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty ; 

 as if self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far 

 less likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage 

 masters. It is an argument long since protested against with 

 noble feeling, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever illustrious 

 Humboldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by com- 

 paring the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen : if the 

 misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by 

 our institutions, great is our sin ; but how this bears on slavery, 

 I cannot see ; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be de- 

 fended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered 

 from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the 

 slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to 

 put themselves into the position of the latter ; what a cheerless 

 prospect, with not even a hope of change ! picture to yourself 

 the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little 

 children those objects which nature urges even the slave to 

 call his own being torn from you and sold like beasts to the 

 first bidder ! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, 

 who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe 

 in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth ! It makes 

 one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen 

 and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, 

 have been and are so guilty : but it is a consolation to reflect, 

 that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by 

 any nation, to expiate our sin. 



On the last day of August we anchored for the second time at 

 Porto Praya in the Cape de Verd archipelago ; thence we pro- 

 ceeded to the Azores, where we staid six days. On the 2nd 

 of October we made the shores of England ; and at Falinouth I 



