CONSIDERATIONS ON SLATEET. 271 



which external politics nw prepuce in the situation of the 

 West Indies. I have merely examined what regards the 

 organization of human society; the unequal partition of 

 rights and of the enjoyments of life ; the threatening dan- 

 gers which the wisdom of the legislator and the moderation 

 ol free men may ward off, whatever be the form of the 

 government. It is for the traveller who has been an eye- 

 witness of the suffering and the degradation of human na- 

 ture, to make the complaints of the unfortunate reach the 

 ear of those by whom they can be relieved. I observed the 

 condition of the blacks in countries where the laws, the 

 religion, and the national habits tend to mitigate their fate ; 

 yet I retained, on quitting America, the same horror of 

 slavery which I had felt in Europe. In vain have writers 

 of ability, seeking to veil barbarous institutions by ingenious 

 turns of language, invented the expressions "negro peasants 

 of the West Indies," "black vassalage," and "patriarchal 

 protection:" that is profaning the noble qualities of the mind 

 and the imagination, for the purpose of exculpating by illusory 

 comparisons, or captious sophisms excesses which afflict hu- 

 manity, and which prepare the way for violent convulsions. 

 Do they think that they have acquired the right of putting 

 down commiseration, by comparing * the condition of the 



* Such comparisons do not satisfy those secret partizans of the slave- 

 trade, who try to make light of the miseries of the black race, and to 

 resist every emotion those miseries awaken. The permanent condition of 

 a caste founded on barbarous laws and institutions, is often confounded 

 with the excesses of a power temporarily exercised on individuals. Thus 

 Mr. Bolingbroke, who lived seven years at Demerara, and who visited the 

 West India Islands, observes that " on board an English ship of war, 

 flogging is more frequent than in the plantations of the English colonies." 

 He adds, "that in general the negroes are but little flogged, but that very 

 reasonable means of correction have been imagined, such as making them 

 take boiling soup strongly peppered, or obliging them to drink, with a 

 very small spoon, a solution of Glauber-salts." Mr. Bolingbroke regards 

 the slave-trade as an universal benefit ; and he is persuaded that if negroes 

 who have enjoyed, during twenty years, all the comforts of slave life at 

 Demerara, were permitted to return to the coast of Africa, they would 

 effect recruiting on a large-scale, and bring whole nations to the English 

 possessions. (Voyage to Demerara, 1807). Such is the firm and frank 

 profession of faith of a planter ; yet Mr. Bolingbroke, as several passages 

 of his book prove, u a moderate man, full of benevolent intentu as toward* 

 the slaves. 



