X.
We have now taken a survey of the treatment which the unfortunate _Africans_ undergo, when they are put into the hands of the _receivers_.

This treatment, by the four first chapters of the present part of this Essay, appears to be wholly insupportable, and to be such as no human being can apply to another, without the imputation of such crimes, as should make him tremble.

But as many arguments are usually advanced by those who have any interest in the practice, by which they would either exculpate the treatment, or diminish its severity, we allotted the remaining chapters for their discussion.

In these we considered the probability of such a treatment against the motives of interest; the credit that was to be given to those disinterested writers on the subject, who have recorded particular instances of barbarity; the inferiority of the _Africans_ to the human species; the comparisons that are generally made with respect to their situation; the positive scenes of felicity which they are said to enjoy, and every other argument, in short, that we have found to have ever been advanced in the defence of slavery.

These have been all considered, and we may venture to pronounce, that, instead of answering the purpose for which they were intended, they serve only to bring such circumstances to light, as clearly shew, that if ingenuity were racked to invent a situation, that would be the most distressing and insupportable to the human race; it could never invent one, that would suit the description better, than the--_colonial slavery_.
If this then be the case, and if slaves, notwithstanding all the arguments to the contrary, are exquisitely miserable, we ask you _receivers, by what right_ you reduce them to so wretched a situation?
You reply, that you _buy them_; that your _money_ constitutes your _right_, and that, like all other things which you purchase, they are wholly at your own disposal.
Upon this principle alone it was, that we professed to view your treatment, or examine your right, when we said, that "the question[109] resolved itself into two separate parts for discussion; into the _African_ commerce, as explained in the history of slavery, and the subsequent slavery in the colonies, _as founded on the equity of the commerce_." Now, since it appears that this commerce, upon the fullest investigation, is contrary to "_the principles[110] of law and government, the dictates of reason, the common maxims of equity, the laws of nature, the admonitions of conscience, and, in short, the whole doctrine of natural religion_," it is evident that the _right_, which is founded upon it, must be the same; and that if those things only are lawful in the sight of God, which are either virtuous in themselves, or proceed from virtuous principles, you _have no right over them at all_.
You yourselves also confess this.