Such are the colonial delights, by the representation of which the receivers would persuade us, that the Africans are taken from their country to a region of conviviality and mirth; and that like those, who leave their usual places of residence for a summer’s amusement, they are conveyed to the colonies—­to bathe,—­to dance,—­to keep holy-day,—­to be jovial.—­But there is something so truly ridiculous in the attempt to impose these scenes of felicity on the publick, as scenes which fall to the lot of slaves, that the receivers must have been driven to great extremities, to hazard them to the eye of censure.

The last point that remains to be considered, is the shameful assertion, that the Africans are much happier in the colonies, than in their own country.  But in what does this superiour happiness consist?  In those real scenes, it must be replied, which have been just mentioned; for these, by the confession of the receivers, constitute the happiness they enjoy.—­But it has been shewn that these have been unfairly represented; and, were they realized in the most extensive latitude, they would not confirm the fact.  For if, upon a recapitulation, it consists in the pleasure of manumission, they surely must have passed their lives in a much more comfortable manner, who, like the Africans at home, have had no occasion for such a benefit at all.  But the receivers, we presume, reason upon this principle, that we never know the value of a blessing but by its loss.  This is generally true:  but would any one of them make himself a slave for years, that he might run the chance of the pleasures of manumission?  Or that he might taste the charms of liberty with a greater relish?  Nor is the assertion less false in every other consideration.  For if their happiness consists in the few holy-days, which in the colonies they are permitted to enjoy, what must be their situation in their own country, where the whole year is but one continued holy-day, or cessation from discipline and fatigue?—­If in the possession of a mean and contracted spot, what must be their situation, where a whole region is their own, producing almost spontaneously the comforts of life, and requiring for its cultivation none of those hours, which should be appropriated to sleep?—­If in the pleasures of the colonial dance, what must it be in their own country, where they may dance for ever; where there is no stated hour to interrupt their felicity, no intolerable labour immediately to succeed their recreations, and no overseer to receive them under the discipline of the lash?—­If these therefore are the only circumstances, by which the assertion can be proved, we may venture to say, without fear of opposition, that it can never be proved at all.

But these are not the only circumstances.  It is said that they are barbarous at home.—­But do you receivers civilize them?—­Your unwillingness to convert them to Christianity, because you suppose you must use them more kindly when converted, is but a bad argument in favour of the fact.