To us, my Frederick, who live in a country where an hour’s detention in a house against our will is punished as unlawful imprisonment, and who feel and value the rich treasure of liberty above all earthly blessings, the bare idea of slavery appears horrible; when the miseries of slavery are sharpened by cruelty, our indignation burns at the offence: but such a complicated piece of enormity as that I have mentioned, almost transcends belief, and indignation is lost in amazement. There are but few men, even in our bracing climate, whom fifty miles riding would not shake to pieces, and torture almost to death. No woman would think of it. But when to that is superadded, first the compulsion—then the sorry and at best painful equipage of the horses—the tender persons, unaccustomed to riding, of the women—the smothering heat of the sack—and above all the horrid climate, burning with an almost vertical heat (vertical at least compared with our oblique sun)—it will be allowed to be a wonder, almost approaching to a miracle, that they survived one half of their journey. The wonder-working hand of Omnipotence alone could bring them through it; and when I asked in the evening whether they were dying or dead, and was told that they were not only alive but in perfect health, I could not help repeating that most beautiful expression put into the mouth of Maria by the inimitable Sterne, “God tempers the wind to the side of the shorn lamb.”
This affair tended to prejudice me strongly against my Tartar guide, and it[it] was for some time that I could not look upon him without horror: but at length my resentment abated; and reason, resuming her seat of cool decision, told me, that though it was a crime and a grievous one, he was not so responsible for it as those who, knowing better, authorised it by their concurrence, gave it the sanction of law, and made it familiarly practised; he only did that which he had been even from his mother’s breast instructed to do, and should therefore not be judged by those rules which a Briton would lay down for the government of such cases.
A Briton!—Hold! Have I not now been uttering a most severe satire upon the British Nation? Yes! imputing to men a virtue which they want, is the worst kind of satire—I meant it not at the time, but will not retract what I have written—Britons deserve the lash of satire! They deserve a worse lash: for the traffic in human bodies still stands a bloody brand of infamy on her great National Councils. Their brothers’ blood! the blood of millions of murdered Africans, like that of Abel, cries to Heaven against them, and will not, I fear, cry in vain.
Great God!—What a horrible thought!—what an indelible stigma! that a Legislator shall, in the cold blood of commerce, make a calculation of the probable profit upon human lives—put commercial expediency in the balance against murder—and make convenience the excuse for crime!—Why, the robber may do so!—But shall Britons, generous Britons, who boastful claim precedence of the world in freedom, humanity, and justice—shall they look on and see inferior nations spurning from them with horror the debasing traffic; and stimulated by avarice, or misled by wicked policy, retain the blot that other States have wiped away, and live at once the curse of one part, and the scorn of the rest of mankind?—Forbid it Mercy! Forbid it Heaven!—And oh! may that virtuous man, who, disdaining the malignant taunts of the base and interested, boldly steps forth the advocate of man and of his country, and session after session springs from the couch of repose which opulence presents him, to break the fetters and the scourges which improbity and avarice have forged for our fellow creatures—may he succeed and bear down all his opposers! and may the justice of his country make his triumph and his glory as certain and complete here, as the justice of that Being, under whose direction he acts, will doubtless make them hereafter!
LETTER XL.
From the considerations I have already pretty fully mentioned, my mind was by no means at ease. The incessant travelling for so many days, at the rate of seventy-five miles a day, to be continued I knew not how long, increased my anxiety: and the apprehensions of accident, interruption, and above all sickness, intercepting me on my way, haunted my imagination with all its terrors. I was besides approaching fast to that region where the winds strike all living things that draw them in instantly dead: and conceiving that the more expeditious I was in getting over the journey, the greater chance I had of escaping those mischiefs; I pushed heartily forward, and urged the Tartar till he at last expressed his astonishment and approbation; paid me the compliment to say, that I was almost equal to himself for enduring fatigue; and concluded with a very sagacious surmise, that in all probability I had been myself a carrier of dispatches among the Frank Governments.
One day after we had rode about four miles from a caravansera, at which we had changed our cattle, I found that a most execrably bad horse had fallen to my lot: he was stiff, feeble, and foundered; in consequence of which he stumbled very much, and I every minute expected that he would fall and roll over me. I therefore proposed to the guide to exchange with me; a favour he had hitherto never refused, and for which I was the more anxious, as the beast he rode was of the very best kind. To my utter astonishment he peremptorily refused: and as this had been a day of unusual taciturnity on his part, I attributed his refusal to peevishness and ill temper, and was resolved not to let the matter rest there. I therefore desired the interpreter to inform him, that as he had at Aleppo agreed to change horses with me as often as I pleased, I should consider our agreement infringed upon if he did not comply, and would write to the Consul at Aleppo to that effect.
As soon as this was conveyed to him, he seemed strongly agitated by anger; yet endeavoured to conceal his emotions under affected contempt and derision, which produced from him one of the most singular grins that ever yet marred the human physiognomy. At length he broke forth: