500 SLAVERY. L 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 ery 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 Falmouth I 
