But the blacks must wait for the happy moment that shall restore them to civil life, in silence and in peace; they must rely upon the unwearied diligence and zeal of the numerous writers who advocate their cause, and the efforts of the humane to second their endeavors; they must strive to justify and support the arguments that are adduced in their favour, by displaying virtue in the very bosom of slavery; they must endeavour, in a word, to render themselves worthy of liberty, that they may know how to use it when it shall be restored to them; for liberty itself is sometimes a burden, when slavery has stupefied the soul.

Such blacks, therefore, as are so inconsiderate as to be concerned in insurrections, are guilty of retarding the execution of the general plan for their emancipation; for the question is not, at the present day, whether a million of slaves ought to be set at liberty, but whether they can when free, be put into a capacity of providing for the subsistence of themselves and their families.  Insurrections, far from effecting this purpose, would destroy the means.  Regard, therefore, to their own interests, if there were no other motive, should therefore engage the blacks to patient submission, and no doubt but they will yield it, if their masters and the ministers of the gospel in particular, to whom the task of comforting and instructing them, is committed, endeavour to prepare them for approaching freedom.

You sir, have adopted the vulgar notion, that the Negroes born in Virginia, are less depraved than those imported from Africa.  You call the firmness which is common in the early stages of their slavery greater degeneracy; they are depraved, that is, in your language—­they are wicked and treacherous to those who have purchased them, or brought them from their own country.—­But in my mind, they are not depraved, because the acts of violence their genius inspires them to revenge themselves upon their tyrants, are justified by the rights of nature.

And why are those imported, more wicked in your opinion?  In mine, more quick, more ardent in their resentments? because, not having forgotten their former situation, they feel their loss the more sensibly; and having strong ideas, their resolutions are more firm and their actions more violent, they not having yet contracted the habits of slavery.

They soon fall into that degree of apathy and insensibility, which you unjustly believe to be natural to them; that is, in your language, they become less depraved; but I would say that their depravity begins with this apathy and weakness.—­For depravity is the loss of nature, and the want of those virtues inherent in man, courage and the love of liberty.  Our readers may judge from this article, how strangely writers have wrested words to condemn these unhappy Negroes, and the unfortunate in general.