Note 66 — JOURNAL. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Frezier says of Bahia, "Who would believe it? there are shops full of those poor wretches, who are exposed there stark naked and bought like cattle, over whom the buyers have the same power; so that upon slight disgust they may kill them, almost without fear of punishment, or at least treat them as cruelly as they please. I know not how such barbarity can be reconciled to the maxims of religion, which makes them members of the same body with the whites, when they have been baptized, and raises them to the dignity of the sons of God—all sons of the Most High.
"I here make this comparison, because the Portuguese are Christians who make a great outward show of religion."—Voyage to the South Sea.