It will be an easy matter, say you, to add ten or twelve pages to these few reflections, which may be considered as a concert, composed only of principal parts, “con corni ad Libertum.”

I hope there is nothing cruel, because there is nothing studied in this connection, this inconsiderate manner:  but how could such a comparison come into the head of a man of feeling?  It is the sad effect of wit, as I said before; it contracts the soul.  Ever glancing over agreeable objects, it is unfeeling when intruded upon by wretchedness—­uneasy to obliterate the shocking idea, and elude the groans of nature, it rids itself of both by a jest.  The humane Benezet would never have connected this idea of harmony with the sound of a Negro driver’s whip.

Having proved that you have wronged the Quakers and the Negroes, I shall proceed to shew that you have equally injured mankind and the people.—­Critical Examination of the Marquis de Chastellux’s Travels in North-America, 1782.  Translated from the French of Jean P. Verre Brissot de Warville, 1788, pp. 51-63.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] This Jefferies was the most infamous Chief Justice that ever existed in England.  Charles II. and James II. well acquainted with his talents for chicane, his debauchery and blood-thirstiness, his baseness and his crimes, made use of him to exterminate, with the sword of law, all those worthy men who defended the constitution from their tyranny.

I often quote the History of England; unhappily for us it is too little known in France.

[2] Most authors who have not studied the rights of men, fall into this error.  I have remarked elsewhere (Vol.  II of the Journ. du Licee, No. 4, page 222) that a writer, who, notwithstanding, deserves our esteem, for having written against the despotism of the Turkish government, has suffered himself to be drawn into it.  M. le Baron de Tott says that the Moldavians are thievish, mean and faithless.  To translate these words into the language of truth, we must say, the Turks, the masters of the Moldavians, are unjust, robbers, villains, and tyrants; and that the Moldavians revenge themselves by opposing deceit to oppression, etc.  Thus, the people are almost everywhere wrongfully accused.

[3] There was, however, a Negro author at London, whose productions are not without merit, and were lately published in two volumes.  His name was Ignatius Sancho.  He wrote in the manner of Sterne.

SUR L’ETAT GENERAL, LE GENRE D’INDUSTRIE, LES MOEURS, LE CARACTERE, ETC.  DES NOIRS, DANS LES ETATS-UNIS