Page:Newton's Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade.pdf/32

Rh The state of Slavery, among these wild barbarous people, as we esteem them, is much milder than in our colonies. For as, on the one hand, they have no land in high cultivation, like our West-India plantations, and therefore no call for that excessive, unintermitted labour, which exhausts our Slaves; so, on the other hand, no man is permitted to draw blood, even from a Slave. If he does, he is liable to a strict inquisition; for the Purrow laws will not allow a private individual to shed blood. A man may sell his slave, if he pleases; but he may not wantonly abuse him. The laws likewise punish some species of theft, with slavery; and in cases of adultery, which are very common, as polygamy is the custom of the country, both the woman, and the man who offends with her, are liable to be sold for Slaves, unless they can satisfy the husband, or unless they are redeemed by their friends.

Among these unenlightened Blacks, it is a general maxim, that if a man steals, or breaks a moveable, as a musket, for instance, the offence may be nearly compensated, by putting another musket in its place; but offences, which cannot be repaired in kind, as adultery, admit of no satisfaction, till the injured person declares