SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 117 



But the great mass of negroes purchased in Africa, are 

 already slaves at home, most miserable slaves, the slaves of 

 savages. They are born, bred in slavery ; they have felt, 

 they have known no other lot. Like beasts of burden, they 

 have been used to be sold, worked, flogged any-how ; to be 

 coupled at the owner's pleasure with his cast-off concubines ; 

 to be tortured for witchcraft when he is sick ; to be maimed 

 for his quarrels when he is in heroics ; to be left during dis- 

 ease, wounds, or age, to dry into a mummy in the desert ; or 

 to be recompensed for exemplary fidelity by being butchered 

 on a master's grave. Of this last usage, the high price given 

 for negroes, has in some degree, occasioned the abolition. 



The transfer of such wretches from Africa to America, is a 

 real service. I have conversed with hundreds of negroes, 

 who all consider it as such. Our imported slaves almost uni- 

 versally acknowledge that they have not worse work to do 

 than at home ; and that they are better provided with food, 

 with luxuries and indulgences, than in Africa. Their treat- 

 ment is improved by the removal : the lash indeed is still used, 

 as on board ship, to stimulate labor ; but torture, witch-craft, 

 aild above all, the despair of bettering their condition, are 

 among the evils withdrawn. Nor is it in Africa only that 

 black slave-owners are the harsher masters. Even a freed 

 negro has so much less humanity of nature than a European, 

 that throughout the West Indies, it is an efficient threat, 



