With Gold, Dug From Peruvian Mountains, They Order Vessels
To The Coasts Of Guinea; By Virtue Of That Gold, Wars, Murders, And
Devastations Are Committed In Some Harmless, Peaceable African
Neighbourhood, Where Dwelt Innocent People, Who Even Knew Not But
That All Men Were Black.
The daughter torn from her weeping mother,
the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving
husband; whole families swept away and brought through storms and
tempests to this rich metropolis!
There, arranged like horses at a
fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to
starve, and to languish for a few years on the different plantations
of these citizens. And for whom must they work? For persons they
know not, and who have no other power over them than that of
violence, no other right than what this accursed metal has given
them! Strange order of things! Oh, Nature, where art thou? - Are not
these blacks thy children as well as we? On the other side, nothing
is to be seen but the most diffusive misery and wretchedness,
unrelieved even in thought or wish! Day after day they drudge on
without any prospect of ever reaping for themselves; they are
obliged to devote their lives, their limbs, their will, and every
vital exertion to swell the wealth of masters; who look not upon
them with half the kindness and affection with which they consider
their dogs and horses. Kindness and affection are not the portion of
those who till the earth, who carry the burdens, who convert the
logs into useful boards.
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