eftate, but the labour employed upon it, that pays his rent. All that he does, is to diftribute what others produce; which is the least part of the bufinefs.

Nor do I perceive any foundation for an opinion which is often handed round in genteel company, that good ufage is thrown away upon low and ordinary minds; that they are infenfible of kindness, and incapable of gratitude. If by "low and ordinary minds" are meant the minds of men in low and ordinary ftations, they feem to be affected by benefits in the fame way that all others are; and to be no lefs ready to requite them: and it would be a very unaccountable law of nature, if it were otherwise.

Whatever uneafinefs we occafion to our domestics, which neither promotes our fervice, nor anfwers the just ends of punishment, is manifeftly wrong; were it only upon the general principle of diminishing the fum of human happiness.

By which rule we are forbidden,

1. To enjoin unneceffary labour or confinement, from the mere love and wantonnefs of domination. 2. To infult our fervants by harfh, fcornful, or opprobrious language.

3. To refuse them any harmless pleasures.

And by the fame principle are alfo forbidden causeless or immoderate anger, habitual peevishness, and groundless fufpicion.

CHAP

CHA P. III.

SLAVERY.

THE prohibitions of the last chapter extend to the treatment of flaves, being founded upon a principle independent of the contract between mafters and fervants.

I define flavery to be "an obligation to labour for "the benefit of the mafter, without the contract or "confent of the fervant."

This obligation may arife, confiftently with the law of nature, from three causes.

1. From crimes.

2. From captivity.

3. From debt.

In the first cafe, the continuance of the flavery, as of any other punishment, ought to be proportioned to the crime; in the fecond and third cafes, it ought to cease, as foon as the demand of the injured nation or private creditor is fatisfied.

The flave-trade upon the coaft of Africa is not excufed by these principles. When flaves in that country are brought to market, no queftions, I believe, are asked about the origin or juftice of the vendor's title. It may be prefumed therefore, that this title is not always, if it be ever, founded in any of the causes above affigned,

But defect of right in the first purchase is the leaft crime, with which this traffic is chargeable. The natives are excited to war and depredation, for the fake of fupplying their contracts, or furnishing the market with flaves. With this the wickedness begins. The flaves torn away from parents, wives, children, from their friends and companions, their

fields

fields and flocks, their home and country, are tranfported to the European fettlements in America, with no other accommodations on fhipboard, than what is provided for brutes. This is the fecond ftage of cruelty from which the miferable exiles. are delivered, only to be placed, and that for life, in fubjection to a dominion and fyftem of laws, the moft merciless and tyrannical that ever were tolerated upon the face of the earth: and from all that can be learned by the accounts of people upon the fpot, the inordinate authority, which the plantation laws confer upon the flave-holder, is exercifed, by the English flave-holder efpecially, with rigour and brutality.

But neceffity is pretended; the name under which every enormity is attempted to be juftified. And after all, what is the neceffity? It has never been proved that the land could not be cultivated there, as it is here, by hired fervants. It is faid that it could not be cultivated with quite the fame conveniency and cheapnefs, as by the labour of flaves: by which means a pound of fugar which the planter now fells for fixpence, could not be afforded under fixpence halfpenny-and this is the neceffity.

The great revolution which has taken place in the Western world may probably conduce (and who knows but that it was defigned?) to accelerate the fall of this abominable tyranny: and now that this conteft, and the paffions which attend it are no more, there may fucceed perhaps a season for reflecting, whether a legiflature, which had fo long lent its affiftance to the fupport of an inftitution replete with human mifery, was fit to be trusted with an empire, the moft extenfive that ever obtained in any age or quarter of the world.

Slavery was a part of the civil conftitution of moft countries, when Chriftianity appeared; yet no paffage is to be found in the Chriftian feriptures, by which it is condemned or prohibited. This is

true;

true; for Chriftianity, foliciting admiffion into all nations of the world, abftained, as behoved it, from intermeddling with the civil inftitutions of any. But does it follow from the filence of fcripture concerning them, that all the civil inftitutions which then prevailed, were right? or that the bad fhould not be changed for better?

Befides this, the difcharging of flaves from all obligation to obey their mafters, which is the confequence of pronouncing flavery unlawful, would have had no better effect, than to let loofe one half of mankind upon the other. Slaves would have been tempted to embrace a religion, which afferted their right to freedom. Mafters would hardly have been perfuaded to confent to claims founded upon fuch authority. The moft calamitous of all contefts, a bellum fervile, might probably have enfued, to the reproach, if not the extinction of the Chriftian name.

The truth is, the emancipation of flaves fhould be gradual; and be carried on by provifions of law, and under the protection of civil government. Christianity can only operate as an alterative. By the mild diffufion of its light and influence, the minds of men are infenfibly prepared to perceive and correct the enormities, which every folly, or wickedness, or accident, have introduced into their public establishments. In this way the Greek and Roman flavery, and fince thefe, the feudal tyranny, has declined before it. And we truft that, as the knowledge and authority of the fame religion advance in the world, they will banish what remains of this odious inftitution,

CHAP.

CHA P. IV.

CHARITY.

THE

PROFESSIONAL

ASSISTANCE.

HIS kind of beneficence is chiefly to be expected from members of the legislature, magiftrates, medical, legal, and facerdotal profeffions. 1. The care of the poor ought to be the principal object of all laws, for this plain reafon, that the rich are able to take care of themfelves.

Much has been, and more might be done, by the laws of this country, towards the relief of the impotent, and the protection and encouragement of the induftrious poor. Whoever applies himself to collect obfervations upon the ftate and operation of the poor laws, and to contrive remedies for the imperfections and abuses which he obferves, and digefts these remedies into acts of parliament, and conducts them by argument or influence through the two branches of the legiflature, or communicates his ideas to thofe, who are more likely to carry them into effect; deferves well of a clafs of the community fo numerous, that their happiness makes no inconfiderable part of the whole. The ftudy and activity thus employed is charity, in the moft meritorious fense of the word.

2. The application of parochial relief is entrusted in the firft inftance to overfeers and contractors, who have an intereft in oppofition to that of the poor, inafmuch as whatever they allow them comes in part out of their own pocket. For this reafon, the law has depofited with juftices of the peace, a power of fuperintendence and controul; and the judicious in

terpofition