It is an opinion, which the _Africans_ universally entertain, that, as soon as death shall release them from the hands of their oppressors, they shall immediately be wafted back to their native plains, there to exist again, to enjoy the sight of their beloved countrymen, and to spend the whole of their new existence in scenes of tranquillity and delight; and so powerfully does this notion operate upon them, as to drive them frequently to the horrid extremity of putting a period to their lives.

Now if these suicides are frequent, (which no person can deny) what are they but a proof, that the situation of those who destroy themselves must have been insupportably wretched: and if the thought of returning to their country after death, _when they have experienced the colonial joys_, constitutes their supreme felicity, what are they but a proof, that they think there is as much difference between the two situations, as there is between misery and delight?
Nor is the assertion of the _receivers_ less liable to a refutation in the instance of those, who terminate their own existence, than of those, whom nature releases from their persecutions.

They die with a smile upon their face, and their funerals are attended by a vast concourse of their countrymen, with every possible demonstration of joy[106].

But why this unusual mirth, if their departed brother has left an happy place?
Or if he has been taken from the care of an indulgent master, who consulted his pleasures, and administered to his wants?
But alas, it arises from hence, that _he is gone to his happy country_: a circumstance, sufficient of itself, to silence a myriad of those specious arguments, which the imagination has been racked, and will always be racked to produce, in favour of a system of tyranny and oppression.
It remains only, that we should now conclude the chapter with a fact, which will shew that the account, which we have given of the situation of slaves, is strictly true, and will refute at the same time all the arguments which have hitherto been, and may yet be brought by the _receivers_, to prove that their treatment is humane.

In one of the western colonies of the Europeans, [107]six hundred and fifty thousand slaves were imported within an hundred years; at the expiration of which time, their whole posterity were found to amount to one hundred and forty thousand.