122 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



Roman world ; so, in the northern and middle parts of mo- 

 dern Europe. It is still so in Turkey, in Russia, in North 

 America. Wherever a labourer of the average strength and 

 health, can habitually earn much more than the expense of 

 his food, clothes, and shelter; he cannot but be a thing of 

 worth. The sovereign will give a sum of money to enlist 

 him among the troops ; the farmer to enlist him among the 

 boors ; the architect to enlist him among the builders. This 

 must be ; and it favours the rapid growth of prosperity in a 

 country, that a premium should be given for arrival and re- 

 sidence. 



This premium, which is represented by the price of a 

 slave, is indeed wholly the natural right of the individual sold ; 

 but he has to discharge out of it two just debts. The one to 

 his supercargo for the fare of transportation, for his passage 

 over ; and the other to the state, for a claim of maintenance 

 -in case of want, which the first act of sale attaches in his favor 

 to the parish, or estate, for which the purchase is made. The 

 cost of transportation may be valued, I think, at about half 

 the selling price of a slave. If he had contracted for his own 

 fare from Sierra Leone to Stabroek, he would have forty or 

 fifty pounds to pay before he could be lodged ashore, and 

 clad after the fashion of the country. 



