For if, upon a recapitulation, it consists in the pleasure of _manumission_, they surely must have passed their lives in a much more comfortable manner, who, like the _Africans at home_, have had no occasion for such a benefit at all.

But the _receivers_, we presume, reason upon this principle, that we never know the value of a blessing but by its loss.
This is generally true: but would any one of them make himself a _slave_ for years, that he might run the chance of the pleasures of _manumission_?
Or that he might taste the charms of liberty with _a greater relish_?
Nor is the assertion less false in every other consideration.

For if their happiness consists in the few _holy-days_, which _in the colonies_ they are permitted to enjoy, what must be their situation _in their own country_, where the whole year is but one continued holy-day, or cessation from discipline and fatigue ?--If in the possession of _a mean and contracted spot_, what must be their situation, where a whole region is their own, producing almost spontaneously the comforts of life, and requiring for its cultivation none of those hours, which should be appropriated to _sleep_ ?--If in the pleasures of the _colonial dance_, what must it be in _their own country_, where they may dance for ever; where there is no stated hour to interrupt their felicity, no intolerable labour immediately to succeed their recreations, and no overseer to receive them under the discipline of the lash ?--If these therefore are the only circumstances, by which the assertion can be proved, we may venture to say, without fear of opposition, that it can never be proved at all.
But these are not the only circumstances.

It is said that they are barbarous at home .-- But do you _receivers_ civilize them ?--Your unwillingness to convert them to Christianity, because you suppose you must use them more kindly when converted, is but a bad argument in favour of the fact.
It is affirmed again, that their manner of life, and their situation is such in their own country, that to say they are happy is a jest.

"But who are you, who pretend to judge[103] of another man's happiness?
That state which each man, under the guidance of his maker, forms for himself, and not one man for another?
To know what constitutes mine or your happiness, is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and cast us in so various and different moulds.