[Footnote 049:  The writer of the letter of which this is a faithful extract, and who was known to the author of the present Essay, was a long time on the African coast.  He had once the misfortune to be shipwrecked there, and to be taken by the natives, who conveyed him and his companions a considerable way up into the country.  The hardships which he underwent in the march, his treatment during his captivity, the scenes to which he was witness, while he resided among the inland Africans, as well as while in the African trade, gave occasion to a series of very interesting letters.  These letters were sent to the author of the present Essay, with liberty to make what use of them he chose, by the gentleman to whom they were written.]

[Footnote 050:  Were this not the case, the government of a country could have no right to take cognizance of crimes, and punish them, but every individual, if injured, would have a right to punish the aggressor with his own hand, which is contrary to the notions of all civilized men, whether among the ancients or the moderns.]

[Footnote 051:  This same notion is entertained even by the African princes, who do not permit the person injured to revenge his injury, or to receive the convict as his slave.  But if the very person who has been injured, does not possess him, much less ought any other person whatsoever.]

[Footnote 052:  There are instances on the African continent, of parents selling their children.  As the slaves of this description are so few, and are so irregularly obtained, we did not think it worth our while to consider them as forming an order; and, as God never gave the parent a power over his child to make him miserable, we trust that any farther mention of them will be unnecessary.]

[Footnote 053:  Abbe Raynal, Hist.  Phil. vol. 4.  P. 154.]

* * * * *

CHAP.  IX.

It remains only now to examine by what arguments those, who receive or purchase their fellow-creatures into slavery, defend the commerce.  Their first plea is, “that they receive those with propriety, who are convicted of crimes, because they are delivered into their hands by their own magistrates.”  But what is this to you receivers?  Have the unfortunate convicts been guilty of injury to you?  Have they broken your treaties?  Have they plundered your ships?  Have they carried your wives and children into slavery, that you should thus retaliate?  Have they offended you even by word or gesture?

But if the African convicts are innocent with respect to you; if you have not even the shadow of a claim upon their persons; by what right do you receive them?  “By the laws of the Africans,” you will say; “by which it is positively allowed.”—­But can laws alter the nature of vice?  They may give it a sanction perhaps:  it will still be immutably the same, and, though dressed in the outward habiliments of honour, will still be intrinsically base.