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out at Caraccas in 1798, had been preceded 

 and followed by great agitation among the 

 slaves at Coro, Maracaybo, and Cariaco. At 

 the last of these places an unfortunate negro 

 had been condemned to die, and our host, the 

 vicar of Catuaro, went thither to offer him the 

 assistance of his ministry. How long did this 

 road appear to us, during which we could not 

 escape conversations on " the necessity of the 

 slave trade, on the innate wickedness of the 

 blacks, and the benefit they derived from their 

 state of slavery among the christians !" 



The mildness of the Spanish legislation com- 

 pared with the Black Code of the greater part 

 of other nations that have possessions in either 

 India, cannot be denied. But such is the state 

 of the negroes, dispersed in places scarcely be- 

 gun to be cultivated, that justice, far from effi- 

 caciously protecting them during their lives, 

 cannot even punish acts of barbarity, that have 

 caused their death. If an inquiry be attempt- 

 ed, the death of the slave is attributed to the 

 bad state of his health, to the influence of a 

 warm and humid climate, to the wounds which 

 he has received, but which, it is asserted, were 

 neither deep nor dangerous. The civil authority 

 is powerless with respect to whatever constitutes 

 domestic slavery ; and nothing is more illusory 

 than the effect so much vaunted of those laws, 

 which prescribe the form of the whip, and the 



