Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/248

238 worſe by their falling into our hands? No; they have only exchanged one ſlavery for another; and I may ſay a better: for here they are brought into a land where the ſun of Iſlamiſm gives forth its light, and ſhines in full ſplendour, and they have an opportunity of making themſelves acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby ſaving their immortal ſouls. Thoſe who remain at home, have not that happineſs. Sending the ſlaves home, then, would be fending them out of light into darkneſs.

"I repeat the queſtion, what is to be done with them? I have heard it ſuggeſted, that they may be planted in the wilderneſs, where there is plenty of land for them to ſubſiſt on, and where they may flouriſh as a free ſtate.—But they are, I doubt, too little diſpoſed to labour without compulſion, as well as too ignorant to eſtabliſh good government: and the wild Arabs would ſoon moleſt and deſtroy, or again enſlave them. While ſerving us, we take care to provide them with every thing; and they are treated with humanity. The labourers in their own countries are, as I am informed, worſe fed, lodged, and clothed. The condition of moſt of them is therefore already mended, and requires no farther improvement. Here their lives are in ſafety. They are not liable to be impreſſed for ſoldiers, and forced to cut one another's Chriſtian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If ſome of the religious mad bigots, who now teaſe us with their ſilly petitions, have, in a fit of blind zeal, freed their ſlaves, it was not generoſity, it was not humanity that moved them to the action; it was from the conſcious burthen of a load of ſins, and hope, from the ſuppoſed merits of ſo good a work, to be excuſed from damnation—How groſsly are they miſtaken, in