510 MORAL AND POLITICAL STATE. 
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 re- 
spect, as an equal. The labour required in this 
state of society, is not such as to impose much 
either of suffering or exhaustion. The Asiatic 
and North African 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 domestic slave, some- 
times as a guard and satellite ; he is treated 
usually with indulgence, often with favour. Some- 
times even the caprice of fortune raises him to 
the first rank under a despotic sovereign, to whom 
servile instruments are always agreeable. The 
other forms, therefore, have nothing to equal the 
horrors of West India slavery, where the only 
object is, to extract from the victim the utmost 
possible amount of labour. The power of pro- 
curing an unlimited supply removed every mo- 
tive to good treatment, which could be derived 
from the necessity of keeping up their numbers. 
The abolition, 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 
