chap, hi.] WEST INDIES. 285 
I am afraid, that cowardice and dissimulation have 
been the properties of slavery in all ages, and will 
continue to be so, to the end of the world. It is 
a situation that necessarily suppresses many of the 
best affections of the human heart.—If it calls forth 
any latent virtues, they are those of sympathy and 
compassion towards persons in the same condition 
of life 3 and accordingly we find that the negroes in 
general are strongly attached to their countrymen, 
but above all, to such of their companions as came 
in the same ship with them from Africa. This is 
a striking circumstance: the term shipmate is un¬ 
derstood among them as signifying a relationship of 
the most endearing nature; perhaps, as recalling 
the time when the sufferers were cut off together 
from their common country and kindred, and awa¬ 
kening reciprocal sympathy, from the remembrance 
of mutual affliction. 
But their benevolence, with a very few excep¬ 
tions, extends no further. The softer virtues are 
seldom found in the bosom of the enslaved African. 
Give him sufficient authority, and he becomes the 
most remorseless of tyrants. Of all the degrees of 
wretchedness endured by the sons of men, the 
greatest, assuredly, is the misery which is felt by 
those who are unhappily doomed to be the slaves of 
slaves; a most unnatural relation, which sometimes 
takes place in the sugar plantations; as for instance, 
when it is found necessary to instruct young ne¬ 
groes in certain trades or handicraft employments. 
In those cases it is usual to place them in a sort of 
apprenticeship to such of the old negroes as are 
