HATEFUL CHARACTER.
Whatever deductions may be made from familiar stories of White Slavery,—allowing that it was mitigated by the genial influence of Mahometanism,—that the captives were well clad and well fed, much better than free Christians there,—that they were permitted opportunities of Christian worship,—that they were often treated with lenity and affectionate care,—that they were sometimes advanced to posts of responsibility and honor,—and that they were known, in contentment or stolidity, to become indifferent to freedom,—still the institution or custom is hardly less hateful. Slavery, in all its forms, even under mildest influences, is a wrong and a curse. No accidental gentleness of the master can make it otherwise. Against it reason, experience, the heart of man, all cry out. "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account."[169] Algerine Slavery was a violation of the Law of Nature and of God. It was a usurpation of rights not granted to man.
"O execrable son, so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given!
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."[170]
Such a God-defying relation could not fail to accumulate disaster upon all in any way parties to it; for injustice and wrong are fatal alike to doer and sufferer. Notoriously in Algiers it exerted a most pernicious influence on master as well as slave. The slave was crushed and degraded, his intelligence abased, even his love of freedom extinguished. The master, accustomed from childhood to revolting inequalities of condition, was exalted into a mood of unconscious arrogance and self-confidence inconsistent with the virtues of a pure and upright character. Unlimited power is apt to stretch towards license; and the wives and daughters of white slaves were often pressed to be the concubines of Algerine masters.[171]
It is well, then, that it has passed away. The Barbary States seem less barbarous, when we no longer discern this cruel oppression.