lence! All around him. His mother, who gave him the first lesson of such obedience-his neighbour, who set him the example of submission-his superiors, who have compelled his will-his equals, who have biassed his judgment by theirs-all are instruments and ministers of tyranny. The tyrant . is but the main spring of those efforts which his subjects mutually make to oppress each other. He keeps them in a state of continual warfare, which legitimates robbery, treason, murders. So that like the blood which circulates in his veins, all the crimes which are committed diverge from his heart, and return to concentrate there. Caligula wished that the whole human race had but one head, that he might have the pleasure of striking it off! Socrates would have said, that if all the crimes of society could have been centered in one head, that should have been the head which he would have devoted to the block!

Let us haste then, to substitute to the blind ferocity of our fathers, the light of reason, and the feelings of humanity. Let us break the chains which we have fixed upon the victims of our avarice. Let us renounce a commerce which has injustice alone for its basis, and luxury for its object.

No: we need not sacrifice the productions which habit has rendered so indispensable to us. You may derive them from your colonies, without peopling them with slaves. Those productions can be cultivated by free men, and enjoyed without re

morse."

The islands abound with negroes who have regained their liberty. They cultivate successfully the little portions of land which they have acquired by donation, or by their industry. They live in peace, and devote themselves to a mode of life at once in

dependent and productive. The slaves of Den

mark, who have been emancipated, have they abandoned their homes?

Do we believe that the facility with which the necessaries of life are extracted without labour from the naturally fertile soil, the little inconvenience with which, under this burning sky, they bear the want of cloathing, will immerse them in idleness? Why then do not the inhabitants of Europe confine themselves to the production of articles of the first necessity? Why do they exhaust themselves in laborious occupations, the object of which is the gratification of transient whim? There are a thousand professions among us, some more laborious than others, which are wholly the effect of our institutions. The law has brought to light a swarm of factitious wants, which would never have existed without it. Distributing property at its capricious will, it has subjected an infinite multitude of men to the imperious will of men, and compelled them to dance and sing for a livelihood. You have among you beings formed like yourselves, who voluntarily inter themselves in the bowels of the mountains to procure you metals, and particularly copper, which poisons you. Why will you affect to believe that the negroes are less bubbles, less fools, than the Europeans?

Granting liberty gradually to these unfortunates, as the reward of their economy, of their good conduct, of their labour; be careful to subject them to your laws, to accommodate them to your manners, to divide with them your superfluities. Give them a country, interests to study, productions to cultivate, indulgencies accommodated to their tastes, and your colonies will not want handshands, which eased of their fetters, will become more active, more robust !

To overturn the system of slavery, sustained by

passions so universal, by laws so authorised, by the rivalship of powerful nations, by prejudices yet. more powerful, to what tribunal shall we carry the cause of humanity, betrayed by such concerted multitudes? Monarchs of the earth, you alone can accomplish this revolution!-If you sport not with the wreck of men-if you regard not the powers of sovereigns as the right of fortunate robbery, and the obedience of subjects as a march stolen upon their ignorance, recall your duties to your recollection-withhold the seal of your authority to the guilty, the infamous traffic, which reduces men to a level with the beasts of the fieldand this commerce will be seen no more!-Unite, for once, to promote the happiness of the world, your projects and your strength, so often united to promote its ruin! and if any one among you dares to erect, upon the generosity of the rest, the hope of augmenting his own riches, his own grandeur, he is an enemy to the human race, and ought to be destroyed!-Carry fire and sword into his domain. Your armies will glow with the holy enthusiasm of humanity. You will then see the difference which virtue places between those who succour the oppressed, and the hirelings who sell themselves to tyrants.

But what am I saying? Cease, ye useless plaints of humanity, to address yourselves to the people or their masters. It has never, perhaps, been consulted in public operations. Alas! if interest alone has influence with your sordid souls, nations of Europe, hear one yet!-Your slaves want neither your generosity nor your counsels, to break the sacrilegious yoke which oppresses them. Nature cries louder than philosophy or interest. Already massacred white men have expiated in part our crimes. Already two colonies of fugitive negroes are established, whom treaties and force have set

aloof from your attempts. Poison has, from time to time, avenged some victims-others are escaped by suicide, from your oppressive power. These enterprises are so many flashes of lightning, which announces an approaching hurricane! Ther e negroes only want a chief, sufficiently daring to lead them on to vengeance and slaughter.

Where is the great man, whom nature perhaps owes to the honour of the human race? Where is the new Spartacus that will not find the Crassius? Then shall the black code be seen no more, and the white code shall be terrible, if the victor thinks only of reprisals !

We cannot conclude this article in a better way than by laying before our readers the opinion of our present premier (Mr. Addington), delivered by him in the character of Speaker of the House of Commons, on Monday, April 2, 1792.

I never listened, said he, with greater satisfaction in my life to any speech, than to that just delivered by his right honourable friend (Mr. Dundas), who had relieved him from the utmost pain and anxiety. He declared, that he was one of those alluded to by his right honourable friend, who had preferred a middle path in regard to the abolition of a trade, or rather a crime, which he had never heard mentioned without feeling the utmost abhorrence and detestation. Hitherto he had been silent on the subject, because he had felt that he could not go the length of voting with his honourable friend, who had introduced the ques<tion of the abolition of the trade into that house : but now he had heard what he could concur in with ease to his mind, and satisfaction to his conscience. He complimented Mr. Whitbread on his eloquent speech, and agreed with him in thinking that the slave trade, however modified, could not be defended, because no argument could justify

the selling of one man for money to the despotism of another man, and tearing him away against his will from his country, his family, and his friends, in order to make him drag out a miserable existence in bondage, in a distant country, to which he was an utter stranger. While he turned with disgust from the hateful trade, he saw the necessity of considering the opposite claims, and was also fearful the trade, if relinquished by us, might be carried on in a manner more repugnant to the interests of humanity,

"He thought these opposite interests would be in a great degree reconciled by the scheme of gradual abolition. He suggested, that the imports of slaves into the island should be limited to ten or twelve years. He contended that negroes, notwithstanding the difference of their colour, ought to be regarded as human creatures. He condemned the slave trade as a measure he had always abhorred. The nervous eloquence of his honourable friend recalled to his memory the observation of a very venerable and eminent judge, now in retirement and in the vale of years (Lord Mansfield), who, when charged with showing too much lenity to a rebel lord, said, that he knew no language which could add guilt to treason. In the same view he knew no language which could add to the horrors of the slave trade; and the proposition now before them would undoubtedly tend to prevent man from preying upon man.

"Mr. Addington said, the present state of the negroes in the West India islands certainly was inadequate to the necessary supply to do the work of the planters; there was too unequal a comparison between the males and females: he not only therefore considered an immediate abolition of the importation of the African negroes as impolitic, but should think a duty on the importation of male ne