It depends wholly on the supposition, that the parents are _brutes_.

If they are _brutes_, we shall instantly cease to contend: if they are _men_, which we think it not difficult to prove, the argument must immediately fall, as we have already shewn that there cannot justly be any _property_ whatever in the _human species_.
It has appeared also, in the second part of this Essay, that as nature made, every man's body and mind _his own_, so no _just_ person can be reduced to slavery against his own _consent_.

Do the unfortunate offspring ever _consent_ to be slaves ?--They are slaves from their birth .-- Are they _guilty_ of crimes, that they lose their freedom ?--They are slaves when they cannot speak .-- Are their _parents_ abandoned?
The crimes of the parents cannot justly extend to the children.
Thus then must the tyrannical _receivers_, who presume to sentence the children of slaves to servitude, if they mean to dispute upon the justice of their cause; either allow them to have been _brutes_ from their birth, or to have been guilty of crimes at a time, when they were incapable of offending the very _King of Kings_.
* * * * * CHAP.

IV.
But to return to the narration.

When the wretched Africans are conveyed to the plantations, they are considered as _beasts of labour_, and are put to their respective work.