III.
When the wretched Africans are thus put into the hands of the _second receivers_, they are conveyed to the plantations, where they are totally considered as _cattle_, or _beasts of labour_; their very children, if any should be born to them in that situation, being previously destined to the condition of their parents.

But here a question arises, which, will interrupt the thread of the narration for a little time, viz.

how far their descendants, who compose the fifth order of slaves, are justly reduced to servitude, and upon what principles the _receivers_ defend their conduct.
Authors have been at great pains to inquire, why, in the ancient servitude, the child has uniformly followed the condition of the mother.
But we conceive that they would have saved themselves much trouble, and have done themselves more credit, if instead of, endeavouring to reconcile the custom with _heathen_ notions, or their own laboured conjectures, they had shewn its inconsistency with reason and nature, and its repugnancy to common justice.

Suffice it to say, that the whole theory of the ancients, with respect to the descendants slaves, may be reduced to this principle, "that as the parents, by becoming _property_, were wholly considered as _cattle_, their children, like _the progeny of cattle_, inherited their parental lot." Such also is the excuse of the tyrannical _receivers_ before-mentioned.

They allege, that they have purchased the parents, that they can sell and dispose of them as they please, that they possess them under the same laws and limitations as their cattle, and that their children, like the progeny of these, become their property _by birth_.
But the absurdity of the argument will immediately appear.