Jure Gentium servi nostri sunt, qui ab hostibus capiuntur. Justinian, L. 1. 5. 5. 1.
Serverum appellatio ex eo fluxit, quod imperatores nostri captivos vendere, ac per hoc servare, nec occidere solent.
Nam sive victoribus jure captivitatis servissent, &c. Justin, L. 4. 3. et passim apud scriptores antiquos.
Neque est contra naturam spoliare eum, si possis, quem honestum est necare. Cicero de officiis. L. 3. 6.
1. Ut liberi suis legibus viverent. Livy, L. 30. 37.
2. Decem millia talentum argenti descripta pensionibus æquis in annos quinquaginta solverent. Ibid.
3. Et naves rostratas, præter decem triremes, traderent, elephantosque, quos haberent domitos; neque domarent alios; Bellum neve in Africa, neve extra Africam, injussu P. R. gererent, &c. Ibid.
The total annual exportation from Africa, is estimated here at 100,000 men, two thirds of whom are exported by the British merchants alone. This estimate is less than that which is usually made, and has been published. The author has been informed by disinterested people, who were in most of the West India islands during the late war, and who conversed with many of the most intelligent of the negroes, for the purpose of inquiring by what methods they had originally been reduced to slavery, that they did not find even two in twenty, who had been reduced to that situation, by any other means than those mentioned above. The author, desirous of a farther confirmation of this circumstance, stopped the press till he had written to another friend, who had resided twenty years in the West-Indies, and whose opinion he had not yet asked. The following is an extract from the answer. "I do not among many hundreds recollect to have seen but one or two slaves, of those imported from Africa, who had any scars to shew, that they had been in war. They are generally such as are kidnapped, or sold by their tyrants, after the destruction of a village. In short, I am firmly of opinion, that crimes and war together do not furnish one slave in an hundred of the numbers introduced into the European colonies. Of consequence the trade itself, were it possible to suppose convicts or prisoners of war to be justly sentenced to servitude, is accountable for ninety-nine in every hundred slaves, whom it supplies. It an insult to the publick, to attempt to palliate the method of procuring them."
The writer of the letter of which this is a faithful extract, and who was known to the author of the present Essay, was a long time on the African coast. He had once the misfortune to be shipwrecked there, and to be taken by the natives, who conveyed him and his companions a considerable way up into the country. The hardships which he underwent in the march, his treatment during his captivity, the scenes to which he was witness, while he resided among the inland Africans, as well as while in the African trade, gave occasion to a series of very interesting letters. These letters were sent to the author of the present Essay, with liberty to make what use of them he chose, by the gentleman to whom they were written.
Were this not the case, the government of a country could have no right to take cognizance of crimes, and punish them, but every individual, if injured, would have a right to punish the aggressor with his own hand, which is contrary to the notions of all civilized men, whether among the ancients or the moderns.
This same notion is entertained even by the African princes, who do not permit the person injured to revenge his injury, or to receive the convict as his slave. But if the very person who has been injured, does not possess him, much less ought any other person whatsoever.
There are instances on the African continent, of parents selling their children. As the slaves of this description are so few, and are so irregularly obtained, we did not think it worth our while to consider them as forming an order; and, as God never gave the parent a power over his child to make him miserable, we trust that any farther mention of them will be unnecessary.