flogging on several successive days, would be yet more terrible than to endure it all at once.

A great additional grievance was, that the master had the power of delegating his authority, and inflicting his punishments by agents, and subagents, whether bond or free. This was a tremendous aggravation of the negroes' condition. Justice would say, "Let the law define the crime and its punishment, and let the magistrate convict the criminal and inflict the punishment," but if this was too good for negroes, the next best thing would have been, that punishment should have been inflicted only by the master personally. A West Indian master would soon have been tired of following his negroes with a cart-whip, and what is more, he would soon have been convinced that the diligence and fidelity of his labourers, would be better secured by encouragement and reward, than by tyrannical punishment.

Another legal disadvantage under which the slave laboured, was that of having no claim to property; whatever he might acquire, belonged to the master. It is true that the masters did not generally enforce their claim. Little opportunity had the poor slave of acquiring any thing beyond a bare subsistence, and that little he might by courtesy be permitted to enjoy in peace, but it was hard not to enjoy it with legal security. What poor English cottager has not exulted to feel that his house was his castle, and that the greatest lord in the land, did not dare to gather a sprig of parsley from his garden without his consent? The poor negro had no such security. His master, if he pleased, might, at any moment, seize his little all; or it might be seized, as well as his

person and his family, to pay his master's debts and here was the acme of legal oppression. The slave, his wife, and family, might be so sold or transferred, at any time, as to separate them from each other for life. There was no law to hinder the separation of families, and it was an event of no uncommon occurrence, to see families put up to sale together, or in lots, to suit the convenience of purchasers. The parents had no property in their children; the father's interest was entirely disregarded, and the children became the property of the owner of the mother; and finally, while the master's power, both of inflicting punishment on his slaves and alienating their persons, was so despotic and unlimited, the slave had no right of redeeming his liberty, or changing his master. Hence no law could avail to secure the slave against cruel treatment; for even if some independent white man should have witnessed the most barbarous cruelty, and the slave should dare, supported by such testimony, to make his complaint, and obtain the conviction and punishment of his tyrant, he would still be the property of that tyrant, and exposed to all the fatal consequences of his resentment. Indeed, it is well known, that proprietors who have been guilty of murdering many of their miserable slaves, and inflicting other horrible cruelties contrary to the laws, have escaped justice, not for want of sufficient persons being fully aware of their guilt, and fully competent to give evidence, but from a fear of the perilous consequences of incurring their resent

ment.

SECT. XI.—DEGRADATION CONNECTED WITH

NEGRO SLAVERY.

It seems to have run throughout the whole spirit and genius of slavery, to degrade and depress its unhappy subject, and by some invidious distinction or other, constantly to keep alive in his mind, a sense of inferiority, and to display it to others. Most of the field negroes are branded with the name of their owners. The pain of this infliction is not trifling in itself, but that is of short duration, and is nothing compared with the coarse and contemptuous affront thus offered to the sacred human form, by stamping upon it an unsightly and indelible record of a degraded and ignominious condition, and proclaiming the opprobrious assertion, "This man is the absolute property of another, and on a level with the beasts that perish." Nay, it even represents the poor branded slave, as far more despised by his master, than the horse that carries him, or the dog that runs by his side; for he would not disfigure the sleek coat of either of these animals by a similar badge, but reserves it for animals of small account, whom he turns loose on the common or forest. This is so notorious a fact, that nothing is more common than to see advertisements for the apprehension of runaway slaves, describing the marks and brands which they bear. Moreover, it is a colonial regulation, that " If any one shall mark a slave, the property of another, or shall deface his or her mark, he shall suffer death as a felon."

Another degradation is, that of working in chains. Runaways, or strayed negroes, who do

not, or from their want of knowledge of the English language cannot, give an account of themselves, are taken up, and put into the workhouses; not receptacles for the unprovided poor, like those in England, but houses of correction and imprisonment, where the work is reckoned so much harder than even the common lot of the negroes, that they are often sent there by their masters and mistresses by way of punishment. These unhappy wretches are employed to dig and carry stones, and to perform all the most fatiguing offices of the public, and they work in chains, sometimes a hundred linked together. The chain being fastened about the leader, is carried round the bodies of all that follow, each being secured by a padlock. As soon as they are thus yoked, they are turned out with a negro driver, and sometimes a white driver also, who rides on a mule, both furnished with cattle whips. Imagine a number of persons thus linked together, without regard to age, strength, or size, how impossible that an equal pace should be kept up by them through a whole day; but woe to those who first flag from fatigue, the whip soon reproves the crime of wearied nature; again they strive to keep up, but again the weariness returns. The weaker pull upon the stronger, and the strong tread upon the heels of the weak, till at length, nature quite worn out, the wretched gang is driven back to the workhouse.

As an instance of this kind of degradation, it may be stated as a fact, that, before the abolition of the slave-trade, there were shops, in Liverpool, expressly for the purpose of furnishing instruments of confinement and torture for slaves, of which specimens are even now preserved, such as iron

hand-cuffs, shackles for the legs, collars with spikes, and instruments for forcing open the mouth and throwing in food, to such as, through sulkiness, (the favorite word among slave dealers for expressing a negro's broken heart,) refuse to take their food. These instruments were principally used on the slave voyages, but not confined to them, as will appear in the next sectior.

Another degradation is the contempt to which they are exposed, on account of the colour of their skin. "God hath made of one blood, all nations of men to dwell upon the face of the earth," and with the common Parent there is no respect of persons. It has been happily expressed, that "The negro is God's image carved in ebony," but white men have represented the colour of the negro's skin as a badge of inferiority and degradation. This is irrespective of his condition, for if he were a free man, who had nobly obtained his own ransom, and honourably used it, or even if it could be proved that neither he nor his ancestors were ever in a state of slavery, still it would not do away the contempt on account of being a coloured person of possessing a black skin. The most opprobrious epithet which a West Indian master in a passion can utter, is not, You slave, but, You negro! No degree of personal merit, or even the acquisition of wealth and importance can do away this reproachful prejudice. Very few white persons, except under the influence of genuine Christianity, would sit down at table or in a place of worship with a negro, and there is little doubt that, from the land of slavery, some haughty English nurse imported into the nurseries of England, that foolish and wicked threat, "The