THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 557 



not be found a fufficient excufe for the enormities they have 

 occafioned. 



I would not, by any means, have my readers fo far mi- 

 flake what I have now faid as to think it contains either 

 cenfure upon, or difapprobation of, the nave- trade. I would 

 be underftood to mean juft the contrary ; that the abufes and 

 neglect of manners, fo frequent in our plantations, is what 

 the legislature mould direct their coercion againft, not againil 

 the trade in general, which laft meafure, executed fo fud- 

 denly, cannot but contain a degree of injuftice towards in- 

 dividuals. It is a fhame for any government to fay, that 

 enormous cruelties towards any fet of men are fo evident, 

 and have arrived to fuch excefs, without once having been 

 under consideration of the legislature to- correct them. It is a 

 greater lhame ftill for that government to fay, that thefe 

 crimes and abufes are now grown to fuch a height that 

 wholefome feverity cannot eradicate them ; and it cannot 

 be any thing but an indication of , effeminacy and weaknefs 

 at once to fall to the deftruction of an object of that import- 

 ance, without having firffc tried a reformation of thole a- 

 bufes which alone, in the minds of fober men, can make 

 the trade exceptionable, 



The incontinence of thefe people has been a favourite 

 topic with which blacks have been branded ; but, through- 

 out the whole of this hiftory, I have fet down only what I 

 have obferved, without confulting or troubling myfelf with 

 the fyftems or authorities of others, only fo far, as having 

 thefe relations in my recollection, I have compared them 

 with the fact,, and found them erroneous. As late as two 



centuries 



