23B HISTORY OF THE [book iv. 
ous to virtue, is their general conduct towards 
their slaves such only as necessarily results from 
their situation? If to this inquiry, an affirmative be 
returned, surely, Christian charity, though it may 
lament and condemn the first establishment of a 
system of slavery among them, and the means by 
which it is still kept up and supported, will not 
hastily arraign those who neither introduced, nor, as 
I shall hereafter shew, have been wanting in their 
best endeavours to correct and remedy many of the 
evils of it. 
Having premised thus much, I shall now pro¬ 
ceed to lay before my readers some account of the 
origin and present state of the slave trade, between 
the nations of Africa and such of the states of Eu- 
i‘ope as are concerned in it: this will constitute 
what remains of the present chapter. In the next 
I shall offer some thoughts on the negro charac¬ 
ter and disposition: after which I shall treat; first, 
of the means by which slaves are procured in 
Africa; secondly, of the mode of conveying them 
to the West Indies; and thirdly, of their general 
treatment and situation when sold to the planters 
there: an arrangement which will afford opportuni¬ 
ties of illustrating the foregoing observations, by 
enabling me to intersperse such reflections as occur 
to my mind, on the several petitions now depending 
in parliament for a total abolition of the slave trade, 
all, or the greatest part of which, are grounded on 
abuses charged to exist under those several heads. 
