Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/123

( 98 ) raised them to the standard of man in temperate climates, neither has she sunk them to the level of brutes; hence although they are fitted to be more easily reduced to a state of subjection, they are not absolutely incapable of understanding the value of liberty, or ignorant of the means both of acquiring and preserving it. The negro is not always devoid of that courage and fortitude, that marks the superiority of his European tyrant; he suffers pain with the most stoical indifference, and often dares his master to punish him by inflicting tortures on himself. Many negroes retreat to the fastnesses in the mountains, where they form a body of implacable marauders, and warm with revenge, commit unceasing depredations upon the neighbouring farmers. A short