496 
MORAL AND POLITICAL 
ed. It is, however, satisfactory to think, that no 
farther efforts can now be necessary to rouse the 
public mind to a due sense of the enormity of this 
traffic. Splendid orations by the first parliamen- 
tary orators, the generous efforts of private philan- 
thropists, and, perhaps more than all, a series of 
masterly discussions upon this subject, diffused 
through the universally circulated medium of the 
Edinburgh Review, have exhausted and rendered 
superfluous every argument which could be used 
on the subject. It only remains, therefore, to 
give a rapid sketch of slavery and the slave-trade, 
as it now exists throughout this continent. 
Slavery is general throughout Africa ; but the 
slavery of African to African is comparatively of 
a very mild character. The slave sits on the same 
mat with his master, and eats out of the same dish ; 
he converses with him, in every respect, as an 
equal. The labour required in this state of so- 
ciety, is not such as to impose much either of suf- 
fering or exhaustion. The Asiatic and North Afri- 
can slave-trade is of a different character. It implies 
much misery ; it severs the victim from his home, 
his country, and all the scenes with which he had 
been familiar. He is employed, however, as a do- 
mestic slave, sometimes as a guard and satel- 
lite ; he is treated usually with indulgence, often 
with favour. Sometimes even the caprice of for- 
tune raises him to the first rank under a des- 
