BOOK III. CHAP. II. 39J 



clitFerent ftates, aware of this furor for liberty, have taken care to lay 

 reftraints upon it. In England, for example, the common labourers 

 are obliged, by force of penal inftitutions, to. remain content with a 

 very limited portion of liberty. The felons baniflied to America 

 would foon evade their fentence, if not conllrained to obedience by 

 fuperior ftrength. Without this curb, no man would fuffer himfelf 

 to be deprived of his perfonal freedom for debt; no feaman would 

 fubmit to be prefled, no Ibldier to be retained in the fervice, no 

 highwayman to be hanged. A labourer in England never confented 

 to the laws which impofe reltridions upon him ; but there is in 

 every government a certain fupreme controuling power, included in 

 the ibcial compa<5t, having the energy of law, or publidied and de^ 

 clared as the law of the land ; by which every member of the com- 

 munity, high and low. rich and poor, is refpedively bound : it is in 

 truth an aflbciation of the opulent and the good, for better preferving 

 their acquifitions, againft the poor and the wicked. For want> 

 complicated with mifery and vice, generally feeks relief by plunder- 

 ing from thofe who are better provided. An African is as much 

 bound by this fupreme power, as the Englifh labourer. 



If then every African ftate has from the eariieft ages, as far as wc 

 can trace, not only tolerated a property in men, but aflerted and exer*- 

 cifed a right of felling their criminals, (laves of war, and native 

 flaves, to any one that would buy them, in this transfer is implied as 

 much right of property in the vendee, as in the vender : no one 

 queftions in that country, not even the criminals and Haves them- 

 felves, this right of felling, and acquiring a property; it is univer- 

 fally acknowledged; nor is the will of the party fold, ever confulted; 

 he admits the vender's right, as part of the law or ufage of his fo- 

 ciety ; and this precludes all idea of illegal durefs, and proves that the 

 right of perfonal property over fuch, as are purchafed out of a ilate 

 of pure flavery, is lawfully continued to the fubfequent owners. 



No one doubts, but that every contraft made in Afric for the pur- 

 chafe of a flave, is there underftood by the three parties, the buyer, 

 the feller, and the perfon fold, to be perfeclly firm' and valid ; the 

 one knows what he buys, the other what he fells, and the third, 

 that his fervices are thus become tranflated to his new owner ; he is 

 confcious likewife, that he himfelf would acquire the fame right. 



Vol. II. E e e fhould 



