It would be really an insult to the understandings and feelings of members of this free and happy country, to enter into any detailed comparison between the situation of a British peasant and a West Indian Slave. It is almost in every particular a perfect contrast; and, for my own part, when, after asserting, with what correctness we will not just now question, that the Slaves are better fed, and clothed, and lodged, than our own peasantry; and when the conclusion has been so confidently drawn, that therefore they must be happier; the assertion has appeared to me to supply only another proof, in addition to the many already furnished, that our opponents in their judgments as well as in their feelings are apt to reason concerning the Negroes, as well as to act towards them, as if they were of an inferior species. Were we engaged in any inquiry concerning the brute creation, to ascertain these particulars might be to decide the question of their happiness or misery. But are feeding and clothing, and lodging, the only claims of a rational and immortal Being? Are the feelings of the heart nothing? Are the consciousness of independence, and the power of pursuing the occupation and habits of life which we prefer, nothing? Is the prospect of happier days, and of an improved situation for ourselves or our children, nothing? Where also are family endearments, and social intercourse, and willing services, and grateful returns? Where, above all, are moral improvement, and the light of religious truth, and the hope full of immortality?
It is indeed a merciful ordination of the Supreme Being, that men are often able to accommodate themselves in some degree to their situation, and to suffer less from it than we might suppose. We may therefore sometimes be apt to imagine our fellow creatures more miserable than they really are, because we should be extremely miserable in their situation; but this does not alter the essential nature of things, and annihilate the distinctions between happiness and misery.
But besides that in the negro Slave’s condition there are but too many glaring unambiguous causes of positive suffering, many of those sources of enjoyment which are commonly open to the poor and the ignorant, are here excluded. It has justly been observed, as an instance of the goodness of the great Creator of all things, that though he has provided the world with but a scanty portion of those more curious substances, or more refined luxuries, which are never necessary to happiness, and which often serve only to gratify vanity; the articles which are really necessary for the comfort and well-being of man, are either supplied every where with inexhaustible profusion, or are at least of no difficult attainment. By a like gracious ordination, he has likewise rendered the enjoyments which are most substantially and permanently gratifying, universally accessible; the domestic affections, the social pleasures, the tender emotions, the sweets of hope, and recollection, religious hopes and consolations. All these are gratifications which virtuous poverty often enjoys in large measure, which wealth cannot purchase, nor greatness secure.