CITIIilZATION AND SLATEET. 
28S 
long established, the increase of civilization solely has less 
influence on the treatment of slaves than many are disposed 
to admit. The civilization of a nation seldom extends to a 
great number of individuals ; and does not reach those ^\d^o 
in the plantations are in immediate contact with the blades. 
I have known very humane proprietors shrink Irom the dilti- 
culties that arise in the great plantations ; they hesitate to 
disturb established order, to make innovations) which, ii not 
simultaneous, not supported by the legislation, or (which 
would be more powerful) by public tccliiig, would tail in 
their end, and perhaps aggravate the wretchedness ot those 
whose sufferings they were meant to alleviate. con- 
siderations retard the good that might he efleeted by men 
animated by the most benevolent intentions, and who deplore 
the barbarous institutions which have devolved to them by 
inheritance. They well know, that to produce an essential 
change in the state of the slaves, to lead them progressively to 
the enjoyment of liberty, requires a (inn wi 1 on the part ol the 
local authorities, the coneurrenco of wealthy and enlightened 
citizens, and a general plan in whicli all chances ot disordei , 
and means of repression, are wisely ealeulated. \\ itliont 
this community of action and eftort, slavery, with its 
miseries and excesses, will survive as it did in ancient Kome, 
along with elegance of manners, progressive intelligence, and 
all the charms of the civilization which its presence accuses 
and which it threatens to destroy, whenever the hour ot 
vengeance shallarrive. Civilization, or slow national demora- 
lization, merely prepare the way for future events ; hut to pro- 
duce great changes in the social state, there must be a coinci- 
dence of certain events, the period of the occurrence oi which 
cannot be calculated. Such is the complication of human des- 
tiny, that the same cruelties which tarnished the conquest ot 
America, have been re-enacted before our own eyes in times 
which we suppose to he characterized by vast progress, iiilor- 
* The areument deduced from the civilization of Rome and Greece, m 
favour of slavery, is much in vogue in the West Indies, where 
we find it adorned with all the graces of erudition, thus. >" 
delivered in 17B5. in the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica, it ' 
that from the e.tample of elephants having been employed in the wars ol 
Pyrrhus and Hannibal, it could not be blameable to have biought 
fed dogrand forty hunters from the island of Cuba to hunt the maroon 
negroes. Bryan Edwards, vol. i, p- 5/0. 
