But surely, the honourable admiral must have meant, that, as he had
often toiled like a slave in the defence of his country, (as his many
gallant actions had proved,) so he envied the day when he was to toil in
a similar manner in the same cause. If, however, his words were to be
taken literally, his sensations could only be accounted for by his
having seen the negroes in the hour of their sports, when a sense of the
misery of their condition was neither felt by themselves not visible to
others. But their appearance on such occasions did by no means disprove
their low and abject state. Nothing made a happy slave but a degraded
man. In proportion as the mind grows callous to its degradation, and all
sense of manly pride is lost, the slave feels comfort. In fact, he is no
longer a man. If he were to define a man, he would say with Shakespeare,
Man is a being holding large discourse,
Looking before and after.
But, a slave was incapable of looking before and after; he had no motive
to do it; he was a mere passive instrument in the hands of others to be
used at their discretion. Though living, he was, dead as to all
voluntary agency; though moving amidst the creation with an erect form,
and with the shape and semblance of a human being, he was a nullity as a
man.
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