Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/127

( 93 ) This Equality proved by others, who have seen them after their arrival in the West Indies.

The same accounts are also given of them after their arrival in the West Indies. Giles and Woolrich observe their intellects to be good, and Harrison, Jackson, Duncan, Stuart, Cook, the Dean of Middleham, and Rees, to be equal to those of the Europeans. The same equality to the whites is mentioned by Harrison, Cook, Duncan, and Davies, to hold good with respect to their dispositions also. Generosity, fidelity, and gratitude, are allowed them by Stuart. These virtues Dr. Jackson enumerates, and adds charity to all in distress, and a strong attachment on the part of the parents to their children. Baillie insists on the same, of which he gives some instances, and Woolrich, after stating that he knows of no exception to their possessing the social affections as strongly as the whites, says, that he never knew an African, who could express himself, but allowed of a Supreme Being.

To this account may be added the words of Captain Smith, who says, he always considered them as a keen, sensible, well-disposed people, where their habits were not vitiated by cruel usage on the part of the Europeans. C H A P.VI.