treated there as the unhappy Africans are in this country?  Who can support the reflexion of his father—­his mother—­his sister—­or his wife—­perhaps his children—­being barbarously snatched away by a foreign invader, without the prospect of ever beholding them again?  Who can reflect upon their being afterwards publicly exposed to sale—­obliged to labor with unwearied assiduity—­and because all things are not possible to be performed, by persons so unaccustomed to robust exercise, scourged with all the rage and anger of malignity, until their unhappy carcasses are covered with ghastly wounds and frightful contusions?  Who can reflect on these things when applying the case to himself, without being chilled with horror, at circumstances so extremely shocking?—­Yet hideous as this concise and imperfect description is, of the sufferings sustained by many of our slaves, it is nevertheless true; and so far from being exaggerated, falls infinitely short of a thousand circumstances of distress, which have been recounted by different writers on the subject, and which contribute to make their situation in this life, the most absolutely wretched, and completely miserable, that can possibly be conceived.—­In many places in America, the slaves are treated with every circumstance of rigorous inhumanity, accumulated hardship, and enormous cruelty.—­Yet when we take them from Africa, we deprive them of a country which God hath given them for their own; as free as we are, and as capable of enjoying that blessing.  Like pirates we go to commit devastation on the coast of an innocent country, and among a people who never did us wrong.

An insatiable, avaricious desire to accumulate riches, cooperating with a spirit of luxury and injustice, seems to be the leading cause of this peculiarly degrading and ignominious practice.  Being once accustomed to subsist without labour, we become soft and voluptuous; and rather than afterwards forego the gratification of our habitual indolence and ease, we countenance the infamous violation, and sacrifice at the shrine of cruelty, all the finer feelings of elevated humanity.

Considering things in this view, there surely can be nothing more justly reprehensible or disgusting than the extravagant finery of many country people’s daughters.  It hath not been at all uncommon to observe as much gauze, lace and other trappings, on one of those country maidens as hath employed two or three of her father’s slaves, for twelve months afterwards, to raise tobacco to pay for.  Tis an ungrateful reflexion that all this frippery and effected finery, can only he supported by the sweat of another person’s brow, and consequently only by lawful rapine and injustice.  If these young females could devote as much time from their amusements, as would be necessary for reflexion; or was there any person of humanity at hand who could inculcate the indecency of this kind of extravagance, I am persuaded that they have hearts good enough to reject with disdain, the momentary pleasure of making a figure, in behalf of the rational and lasting delight of contributing by their forbearance to the happiness of many thousand individuals.