The Europeans, on the establishment of their western colonies, required a greater number of slaves than a strict adherence to the treaty could produce.

The princes therefore had only the choice of relinquishing the commerce, or of consenting to become unjust.

They had long experienced the emoluments of the trade; they had acquired a taste for the luxuries it afforded; and they now beheld an opportunity of gratifying it, but in a more extentive manner.

_Avarice_ therefore, which was too powerful for _justice_ on this occasion, immediately turned the scale: not only those, who were fairly convicted of offences, were now sentenced to servitude, but even those who were _suspected_.
New crimes were invented, that new punishments might succeed.

Thus was every appearance soon construed into reality; every shadow into a substance; and often virtue into a crime.
Such also was the case with respect to prisoners of war.