STATE OP AFRICA. 
497 
jpotic sovereign, to whom servile instruments 
are always agreeable. The other forms, there- 
fore, have nothing to equal the horrors of West 
India slavery, where the only object is, to ex- 
tract from the victim the utmost possible amount 
of labour. The power of procuring an unli- 
mited supply, removed every motive to good 
treatment, which could be derived from the ne- 
cessity of keeping up their numbers. The abo- 
lition, therefore, of the trade by Britain, and, 
through the influence of its example, by America 
and France, has produced an immense amount of 
good. We have been assured, on good authority, 
that the treatment of slaves in the West India co- 
lonies has, since that era, been greatly ameliorated. 
It is true that a very great increase has taken 
place in the Spanish and Portuguese slave-trade, 
so that the whole annual amount is said not to be 
very materially diminished. This increase, however, 
would probably have taken place in any event. 
Some consolation may even be found in consider- 
ing that the Spanish slave-code is conceived in a 
spirit of humanity, not observable in that of any 
other European nation. We may instance the en- 
actment, by which two persons of different planta- 
tions marrying, are directed, by exchange, to be 
placed under the same master. The introduction 
even, by whatever means, of a new race to people 
the vast solitudes of Maranan and the La Plata, 
VOL. II. I i 
