“Well, but,” observed Newton, who placed the tumbler of punch before him.  “You promised to renew your argument after dinner; and I should like to hear what you have to urge in defence of a system which I never have heard defended before.”

“Well,” replied his host, upon whom the wine and punch had begun to take effect, “just let me fill my tumbler again to keep my lips moist, and then I’ll prove to you that slavery has existed from the earliest times, and is not at variance with the religion we profess.  That it has existed from the earliest times, you need only refer to the book of Genesis; and that it is not at variance with our religion, I must refer to the fourth Commandment.  How can that part of the commandment be construed, ’and the stranger that is within thy gates’?  To whom can this possibly apply but to the slave?  After directing that the labour of all the household, ‘man-servant and maid-servant,’ should cease, it then proceeds to the ox and the ass, and the stranger that is within thy gates.  Now, gentlemen, this cannot be applied to the stranger in the literal sense of the word, the hospitality of the age forbidding that labour should be required of him.  At that time slaves were brought from foreign lands, and were a source of traffic, as may be inferred by the readiness with which the Ishmaelites purchased Joseph of his brethren, and resold him in Egypt.

“Nay, that slavery was permitted by the Almighty is fully proved by the state of the Jewish nation, until He thought proper to bring them out of the house of bondage.

“If, then, the laws of God provided against the ill-treatment of the slave, slavery is virtually acknowledged as not being contrary to His Divine will.  We have a further proof, subsequent to the mission of our Saviour, that the apostles considered slavery as lawful.”

“I remember it:  you refer to Paul sending back the runaway slave Onesimus.  Well, I’ll admit all this,” replied Mr Berecroft, who had a great dislike to points of Scripture being canvassed after dinner; “and I wish to know what inference you would draw from it.”

“That I was just coming to:  I assert that my property in slaves is therefore as legally mine as my property in land or money; and that any attempt to deprive me of either is equally a robbery, whether it be made by the nation or by an individual.  But now, sir, allow me to ask you a question, show me where liberty is?—­Run over all the classes of society, and point out one man who is free?”

Mr Berecroft, who perceived the effect of the arrack punch, could not refrain from laughing, as he replied, “Well, your friend Mr Kingston, is he not free?”