23

Some positive praise has also been given to this injured race, in respect of which there is no contrariety of evidence. It is noticed for instance, by Mr. Edwards, and several other writers, that the old Negroes are universally treated by the young with singular tenderness and respect. Nor ought a trait like this to be deemed of small account, when we find it adduced by the first moralists of antiquity, as indicating an extraordinary degree of virtue.

If any consistency can be found among the apologists of Colonial slavery, in their charges against the Negroes, it is in ascribing to them the characteristic vice of falsehood. But this, like some other abject qualities, is uniformly the effect of private bondage; and we are so far from finding reason to believe that it peculiarly distinguishes the native African character, that there is good evidence of the very reverse. "One of the first lessons," (says Mr. Park in his travels)

" in which the Mandingo women instruct their children, is the practice of truth. The reader (he adds) will probably recollect the case of the unhappy mother, whose son was murdered by the Moorish banditti. Her only consolation in her utmost distress was, that the poor boy in the course of his blameless life had never told a lie.”*

That Colonial slavery has generated most of those vices which are alleged in its excuse, was felt, and is distinctly admitted, by Mr. Edwards; and this is a fact which he was very competent to ascertain; for he had seen multitudes of newly imported Africans; had, as he himself informs us, many of them under his own management; and he appears to have taken pains to study their character.

It should be added that the vicious qualities of the Colonial Negro, as far as they really exist, are weeds which neither religious

* Park's Travels into the Interior of Africa, p. 264.

25

nor moral culture has been employed to pluck up. They are the growth, not merely of bondage, but of ignorance; and of ignorance, grosser perhaps than has ever existed elsewhere among the inhabitants of a civilized land for it is not pretended that the West Indian Slave, from his birth or importation to his grave, receives from his master any education whatsoever, or possesses in general the means of acquiring any religious knowledge.

The charitable zeal of some religious societies in this country has indeed, of late years, supplied our Islands with a few Missionaries, by whom a small part of the Slaves have been instructed in the elements of Christianity, and provided with some means of public worship. And wherever this has been the case, a striking improvement of morals has followed. It has been publickly admitted by the Planters, and even by the legislative assemblies, of the Leeward Islands,

where alone the experiment has been fairly made, that the vices of their Slaves have disappeared, in proportion as they have been enabled to understand, and induced to embrace, the Christian religion.

If therefore the vices in question were inherent in the African character, and not the effects of oppression, still they would present no just ground of discouragement, but rather a new motive for perseverance: for they would be evils which our charitable aid might contribute to remove.

It is true that the plan of this institution does not embrace the propagation of Christianity, by any efforts of our own. That blessing may be best communicated to Africa by the societies which are already engaged in religious missions, or may hereafter embark in them. But in improving the temporal condition of the Natives, we shall greatly facilitate their conversion, and without interfering with any of the missions,

27

shall indirectly, and in a variety of ways, be serviceable to them all.

The moral quality most obviously important to our views, and in which Africans in their native country are alleged to be grossly deficient, is industry; and, doubtless, if we were to judge by what appears on the African Coast alone, and without any allowance for the necessary effects of the Slave Trade, the charge would be specious.

Indolence, it must be admitted, is a com mon characteristic of all uncivilized people; and therefore if this imputation, supposing it true, were a conclusive argument against attempting to convey to Africa those useful arts which cannot subsist without labour, it would apply to every similar attempt in every part of the globe. It would be conclusive against the endeavour at any time or place, or in any mode, to improve the condition of any part of our species. Nay, it would become an inexplicable paradox