CHAP. VII.

Montesquieu's sentiments on slavery. Moderation enjoined by the Mosaic law in the punishment of offenders. Morgan Godwyn's account of the contempt and grievous rigour exercised upon the Negroes in his time. Account from Jamaica, relating to the inhuman treatment of them there. Bad effects attendant on slave-keeping, as well to the masters as the slaves. Extracts from several laws relating to Negroes. Richard Baxter's sentiments on slave-keeping.

He complains, "That they were suffered to live with their women in no better way than direct fornication; no care being taken to oblige them to continue together when married; but that they were suffered at their will to leave their wives, and take to other women." I shall conclude this sympathizing clergyman's observations, with an instance he gives, to shew, "that not only discouragements and scoffs at that time prevailed in Barbadoes, to establish an opinion that the Negroes were not capable of religious impressions, but that even violence and great abuses were used to prevent any thing of the kind taking place. It was in the case of a poor Negro, who having, at his own request, prevailed on a clergyman to administer baptism to him, on his return home the brutish overseer took him to task, giving him to understand, that that was no sunday's work for those of his complexion; that he had other business for him, the neglect whereof would cost him an afternoon's baptism in blood, as he in the morning had received a baptism with water, (these, says the clergyman, were his own words) which he accordingly made good; of which the Negro complained to him, and he to the governor; nevertheless, the poor miserable creature was ever after so unmercifully treated by that inhuman wretch, the overseer, that, to avoid his cruelty, betaking himself to the woods, he there perished." This instance is applicable to none but the cruel perpetrator; and yet it is an instance of what, in a greater or less degree, may frequently happen, when those poor wretches are left to the will of such brutish inconsiderate creatures as those overseers often are. This is confirmed in a History of Jamaica, wrote in thirteen letters, about the year 1740, by a person then residing in that island, who writes as follows, "I shall not now enter upon the question, whether the slavery of the Negroes be agreeable to the laws of nature or not; though it seems extremely hard they should be reduced to serve and toil for the benefit of others, without the least advantage to themselves. Happy Britannia, where slavery is never known! where liberty and freedom chears every misfortune. Here (says the author) we can boast of no such blessing; we have at least ten slaves to one freeman. I incline to touch the hardships which these poor creatures suffer, in the tenderest manner, from a particular regard which I have to many of their masters, but I cannot conceal their sad circumstances intirely: the most trivial error is punished with terrible whipping. I have seen some of them treated in that cruel manner, for no other reason but to satisfy the brutish pleasure of an overseer, who has their punishment mostly at his discretion. I have seen their bodies all in a gore of blood, the skin torn off their backs with the cruel whip; beaten pepper and salt rubbed in the wounds, and a large stick of sealing wax dropped leisurely upon them. It is no wonder, if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures incline them to rebel. Most of these slaves are brought from the coast of Guinea. When they first arrive, it is observed, they are simple and very innocent creatures; but soon turn to be roguish enough. And when they come to be whipt, urge the example of the whites for an excuse of their faults."

These accounts of the deep depravity of mind attendant on the practice of slavery, verify the truth of Montesquieu's remark of its pernicious effects. And altho' the same degree of opposition to instructing the Negroes may not now appear in the islands as formerly, especially since the Society appointed for propagating the Gospel have possessed a number of Negroes in one of them; nevertheless the situation of these oppressed people is yet dreadful, as well to themselves as in its consequence to their hard task-masters, and their offspring, as must be evident to every impartial person who is acquainted with the treatment they generally receive, or with the laws which from time to time have been made in the colonies, with respect to the Negroes; some of them being absolutely inconsistent with reason, and shocking to humanity. By the 329th act of the assembly of Barbadoes, page 125, it is enacted,

"That if any Negroe or other slave under punishment by his master, or his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanors towards his said master, unfortunately shall suffer in life or member, (which seldom happens) no person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine therefore. But if any man shall, of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness or cruel intention, wilfully kill a Negroe, or other slave of his own, he shall pay into the public treasury, fifteen pounds sterling." Now that the life of a man should be so lightly valued, as that fifteen pounds should be judged a sufficient indemnification of the murder of one, even when it is avowedly done wilfully, wantonly, cruelly, or of bloody-mindedness, is a tyranny hardly to be paralleled: nevertheless human laws cannot make void the righteous law of God, or prevent the inquisition of that awful judgment day, when, "at the hand of every man's brother the life of man shall be required." By the law of South Carolina, the person that killeth a Negroe is only subject to a fine, or twelve months imprisonment. It is the same in most, if not all the West-Indies. And by an act of the assembly of Virginia, (4 Ann. Ch. 49. sect. 27. p. 227.) after proclamation is issued against slaves, "that run away and lie out, it is lawful for any person whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as he, she, or they shall think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the same."—And lest private interest should incline the planter to mercy, it is provided, "That every slave so killed, in pursuance of this act, shall be paid for by the public."

It was doubtless a like sense of sympathy with that expressed by Morgan Godwyn before mentioned, for the oppressed Negroes, and like zeal for the cause of religion, so manifestly trampled upon in the case of the Negroes, which induced Richard Baxter, an eminent preacher amongst the Dissenters in the last century, in his christian directory, to express himself as follows, viz. "Do you mark how God hath followed you with plagues; and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of men?"—"To go as pirates; and catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called devils incarnate than christians: It is an heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them. Undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because by right the man is his own, therefore no man else can have a just title to him."