WEST INDIES. 
359 
CHAP. V.] 
rence of all acts of cruelty and oppression towards 
the poor people, over whom the accident of birth 
or fortune have invested them with power.—They 
have demonstrated) that their inclination concurs 
with their interest, effectually to perform whatever 
humanity, and the sense of reciprocal obligation, 
require towards their African labourers; and they 
have armed the law with additional energy, in the 
hope of curbing those passions, suppressing those 
frailties, and preventing those excesses, which the 
plenitude of power is too apt to encourage. It 
this effect cannot, in all cases and contingencies, 
be produced, the failure must be comprized among 
the many other insurmountable difficulties and kre- 
sistible evils of life, for which human wisdom has 
hitherto in vain sought a remedy. 
The grand (and I admit the most plausible) ac¬ 
cusation against the general conduct of the plant¬ 
ers, arises from the necessity they find themselves 
under of having an annual recruit of slaves from 
Africa, to fill up the numbers that perish in the 
West Indies. So long as it shall appear that the 
natural increase of the negroes already in the sugar 
islands, is insufficient for this purpose, it will be 
contended, that this circumstance, of itself, affords 
an obvious and undeniable proof, that it is not to in¬ 
dividuals alone, the blame of improper treatment 
ought to be attributed. That power, it is urged, 
must in almost all eases be abused, and that slavery 
must be universally excessive, which give occasion 
to so dreadful a waste of life. The objection has 
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