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’I'll E NATURE AND CAUSES OF

s ome degree of integrity and attachment to his master’s interest,virtues which frequently belong to free servants, but whichnever can belong to a slave, who is treated as slaves commonlyare in countries where the master is perfectly free and secure,v That the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrarythan under a free government, is, I believe, supported by thehistory of all ages and nations. In the Roman history, thefirst time we read of the magistrate interposing to protect theslave from the violence of his master, is under the emperors.When Vedius Pollio, in the presence of Augustus , orderedone of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cutinto pieces, and thrown into his fish-pond in order to feed hisfishes, the emperor commanded him, with indignation, toemancipate immediately, not only that slave, but all theothers that belonged to him. Under the republic no ma-gistrate could have had authority enough to protect the slave,much less to punish the master.

The stock, it is to be observed, which has improved thesugar colonies of France , particularly the great colony of St.Domingo, has been raised almost entirely from the gradualimprovement and cultivation of those colonies. It has beenalmost altogether the produce of the soil and of the industryof the colonists, or, what comes to the same thing, the priceof that produce gradually accumulated by good manage-ment, and employed in raising a still greater produce. Butthe stock which has improved and cultivated the sugar colo-nies of England has, a great part of it, been sent out fromEngland, and has by no means been altogether the produceof the soil and industry of the colonists. The prosperity ofthe English sugar colonies has been, in a great measure, ow-ing to the great riches of England, of which a part has over-flowed, if one may say so, upon those colonies. But theprosperity of the sugar colonies of France has been entirelyowing to the good conduct of the colonists, which musttherefore have has some superiority over that of the English ;and this superiority has been remarked in nothing so muchas in the good management of their slaves.

Such have been the general outlines of the policy of thediflerent European nations with regard to their colonies.

The policy of Europe , therefore, has very little to boast ofeither in the original establishment, or, so far as concernstheir internal government, in the subsequent prosperity of thecolonies of America .