But they, who had used this fact, had suppressed several circumstances relating to it.

It appeared, on questioning Captain Frazer afterward, that this boy had previously run away from his master three several times; that the master had to pay his value, according to the custom of the country, every time he was brought back; and that partly from anger at the boy for running away so frequently, and partly to prevent a repetition of the same expense, he determined to destroy him.

Such was the explanation of the signal instance, which was to fix barbarity on all Africa, as it came out in the cross-examination of Captain Frazer.

That this African master was unenlightened and barbarous, he freely admitted: but what would an enlightened and civilized West Indian have done in a similar case?
He would quote the law, passed in the West Indies in 1722, which he had just cast his eye upon in the book of evidence, by which law this very same crime of running away was by the legislature of an island, by the grave and deliberate sentence of an enlightened legislature, punished with death; and this, not in the case only of the third offence, but even in the very first instance.

It was enacted, "That, if any Negro or other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six months; or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that time, every such person should suffer death." There was also another West Indian law, by which every Negro was armed against his fellow-negro, for he was authorized to kill every runaway slave; and he had even a reward held out to him for so doing.