BOOK II. CHAP. XIII. 327 



law only tends to obviate the detriment refulting to the fociety, 

 from foohfh, and indifcriminate devifes ; leaving in the bread ot" 

 the legiflature to ratify others particularly circumllanced, and 

 which might not be fo likely to produce the fame inconveniences. 

 It is a queftion eafily anlvvered, whether (luppofing all natural im- 

 pediments of' climate out of the way) it would be more for tlic in- 

 terefl of Britain, that Jamaica fliould be polTefled and peopled by 

 white inhabitants, or by Negroes and Mulattos? — Let any man 

 turn his eyes to the Spanifh American dominions, and behold what 

 a vicious, brutal, and degenerate breed of mongrels has been there 

 produced, between Spaniards, Blacks, Indians, and their mixed pro- 

 geny ; and he mud be of opinion, that it might be much be better 

 for Britain, and Jamaica too, if the white men in that colony would 

 abate of their infatuated attachments to black women, and, inftead 

 of being " grac'd with :i yeIio%v ofspring twt their otvn [_k'] ," perform 

 the duty incumbent on every good cittizen, by raifing in honourable 

 wedlock a race of unadulterated beings. The trite pretence of mod' 

 men here, for not entering into that date, is « the lieavy and in- 

 " tolerable expences it will bring upon them." This, in plain 

 Englifli, is nothing more than exprefiing their opinion, that fociety 

 fhall do every thing for them, and that they ought to do nothing' 

 for fociety ; and the folly of the means they purfue, to attain xhv^ 

 felfifh, ungrateful purpofe, is well expofed, by the profuiion and 

 mifery into which their diforderly connexions often infenfibly 

 plunge them. Can we pofhbly admit any force in their excufe, 

 when we obferve them lavifliing their fortune with unbounded libe- 

 rality upon a common proftitute? when we fee one of thefe vota- 

 ries of celibacy grow the abje(5i, paffive flave to all her infults, 

 thefts, and infidelities ; and difperfe his eflate between her and her 

 brats, whom he blindly acknowledges for his children, when \i\ 

 truth they are entitled to claim twenty other fathers ? It is true, the 

 ilTue of a marriage may fometimes lie under fufpicion, through 

 theloofe carriage of the motherj biu.pu which fide does the vvcipht 

 of probability red, on the virtue of awife, or the contiuenee-of/a 

 proditutei i;: , :.::. ,; .: 



■-.,'■ \ ... Very 



