The degree of oppression is the measure of what is improperly called the viciousness of the slaves.—­The more cruel their tyrants, the more treacherous, villainous and cruel are the slaves in return—­Can we wonder that Macronius should assassinate his master Tiberius?  This viciousness is a punishment that heaven inflicts upon tyranny.

Can the efforts of a slave for the recovery of his liberty, be denominated vicious or criminal?  From the moment you violate the laws of nature, in regard to them, why should not they shake them off in their relative duties to you?  You rob them of liberty, and you would not have them steal your gold!  You whip and cruelly torment them, and expect them not to struggle for deliverance!  You assassinate them every day, and expect them not to assassinate you once!  You call your outrages, rights, and the courage which repulses them, a crime!  What a confusion of ideas! what horrid logic!

And you, sir, a humane philosopher! are accessory to this injustice, by describing the blacks in the style of a dealer in human flesh!  You call what are no more than natural consequences of the compression of the spring of liberty—­treachery, theft and depravation.[2] But can a natural consequence be criminal?  Remove the cause or is it not the only crime?

For my part, sir, I firmly believe, that the barbarities committed by the Negroes, not merely against their masters, but even against others, will be attributed at the bar of eternal justice, to the slaveholders, and those infamous persons employed in the Guinea trade.  I firmly believe, that no human justice has the right of putting a Negro slave to death for any crime whatever, because not being free, he is not sui juris, and should be regarded as a child or an idiot, being almost always under the lash.  I believe that the real criminal, the cause of the crime, is the man who first seized him, sold him, or enslaved him.—­And if ever I should fall under the knife of an unhappy runaway, I would not resent it upon him but upon those white men who keep blacks in slavery.  I would tell them, your cruelty towards your Negroes, has endangered my life—­they execrate you, they take me for a tyrant because I am white like you, and the vengeance due to your crimes has fallen upon me.

God forbid, however, that I should undertake to encourage the blacks to take up arms against their masters!  God forbid, however, that I should undertake to justify the excesses to which their resentments have sometimes hurried them, and which have often fallen on persons who were not accessary to their wretchedness!  The slavery under which they groan, must be abolished by peaceable means; and thanks to the active spirit of benevolence which animates the Quakers, the pious undertaking is already begun.  In most of the United States of America, the yoke has been taken from their necks; in others the Guinea-trade has been prohibited.  Societies have been formed both at Paris and London, to collect and circulate information upon this interesting subject, to induce the European governments to put a stop to the Negro trade, and provide for their gradual emancipation in the West-India islands:  No doubt success will crown their views, and the friends of liberty will enjoy the satisfaction of communicating its blessings to the blacks.