tyrants; the word slave, is the appellation of every rank, who adore as a divinity, a being worse than themselves; subject to every caprice, and to every lawless rage which unrestrained power can give.  Tears are shed, perpetual groans are heard, where only the accents of peace, alacrity, and gratitude should resound.  There the very delirium of tyranny tramples on the best gifts of nature, and sports with the fate, the happiness, the lives of millions:  there the extreme fertility of the ground always indicates the extreme misery of the inhabitants!

Everywhere one part of the human species are taught the art of shedding the blood of the other; of setting fire to their dwellings; of levelling the works of their industry:  half of the existence of nations regularly employed in destroying other nations.—­“What little political felicity is to be met with here and there, has cost oceans of blood to purchase; as if good was never to be the portion of unhappy man.  Republics, kingdoms, monarchies, founded either on fraud or successful violence, increase by pursuing the steps of the same policy, until they are destroyed in their turn, either by the influence of their own crimes, or by more successful but equally criminal enemies.”

If from this general review of human nature, we descend to the examination of what is called civilised society; there the combination of every natural and artificial want, makes us pay very dear for what little share of political felicity we enjoy.  It is a strange heterogeneous assemblage of vices and virtues, and of a variety of other principles, for ever at war, for ever jarring, for ever producing some dangerous, some distressing extreme.  Where do you conceive then that nature intended we should be happy?  Would you prefer the state of men in the woods, to that of men in a more improved situation?  Evil preponderates in both; in the first they often eat each other for want of food, and in the other they often starve each other for want of room.  For my part, I think the vices and miseries to be found in the latter, exceed those of the former; in which real evil is more scarce, more supportable, and less enormous.  Yet we wish to see the earth peopled; to accomplish the happiness of kingdoms, which is said to consist in numbers.  Gracious God! to what end is the introduction of so many beings into a mode of existence in which they must grope amidst as many errors, commit as many crimes, and meet with as many diseases, wants, and sufferings!

The following scene will I hope account for these melancholy reflections, and apologise for the gloomy thoughts with which I have filled this letter:  my mind is, and always has been, oppressed since I became a witness to it.  I was not long since invited to dine with a planter who lived three miles from——­, where he then resided.  In order to avoid the heat of the sun, I resolved to go on foot, sheltered in a small path, leading through a pleasant wood.