selves privileged to use the same weapon; and we shall get nothing but villainy when our competitors are equally villains. And still further-though a bad principle, applied by legislators to a particular end, may seem to profit us, yet it is impossible to calculate the evil consequences which may eventually spring from the national recognition of such a principle. Apply this to slavery. They who have acquired a kind of familiarity with slavery are dangerous to freemen. In whatever degree they influence the legislative policy of their country, in that degree their influence is mischie vous; and since the effects of crimes can never be definitely foreseen, we know not but that those who have touched the awful bulwarks of Liberty, may at length assault her inmost citadel. But if those who maintain that what is morally

wrong may be politically right,' mean to teach us, that a nation is under no necessity of employing the same moral law as individuals, I would then ask of them-What number constitutes a nation, whether the interposition of a mountain or a stream can change the eternal rule of truth; whether nations are not made up of men, and therefore their duties are not the duties of the individuals who compose them? It is found in statics that systems

tions. Whilst we insist that the abolition of the traffic should be complete and immediate, we ask only for the gradual and measured emancipation of those who are already slaves. There is an infinite difference between choking your prisons with no more captives, and rashly liberating all who had been confined there. Your prior conduct, indeed, best instructs us why we must not be as generous as we could be. It is one consequence of vice to make virtue difficult; and our cruelties have so degraded these poor creatures, that they would probably lift the hands we freed, against themselves and us. Instant emancipation would resemble the barbarous mercy of dragging those to the light whose organs of sight were previously weakened by the damps of a dungeon. You must now, therefore, deal out in successive drops the blessings of freedom, when you might have opened the floodgates of mercy upon half the world. But whilst we plead only for gradual emancipation, and ask you but by degrees to file away the chains from their bodies, we call upon you, without a moment's delay, to force away those which shackle their minds. It is knowledge and religion, which, when generally diffused, constitute that pre-existent soul of liberty that will

render practically free any form of government it may animate. These temper liberty, where it is, and create it where it is not.

"Such are the facts and opinions we have stated. What is their effect? You have not confuted our arguments-you could not controvert our facts, but, with a stubborn hostility, you have gathered up and launched again the darts which the shield of humanity had repelled.-Once more then we call upon you to desist from what I cannot but name this legalized butchery. We once more beseech you to gladden the eye of Heaven, by displaying to it in this island, one spot at least in its creation, where this detestable traffic is without a patron. This is the last appeal we may be allowed to make, or you to regard. The cause of this miserable people has been; long enough, matter of cold speculation, or cruel contempt; even now clouds have gathered, in the western hemisphere, which threaten to burst over us in showers of blood. Every day seems big with the most awful prophecies, that, if men any longer refuse to liberate Africa, God at length will make her free."

There was that in Gustavus which vibrated to every word that he uttered. "Such a man," said

he, "almost redeems his countrymen from censure. Who is he ?" asked he.

"An Enthusiast," answered M.; “one of our madmen-a man, as they of O. define it, who may indeed, love God, but certainly hates his fellow-creature."

"O! for an atmosphere," said G. " which would make such madness epidemic!""

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"Such an atmosphere," answered M. "is the very breath of Heaven."

"The people of O. then possibly. could not live

in it ?"

"Not as they do live,” said M.

CHAP. IX.

"THE verses," said G. "which you repeated to me on your journey, were not your own ?”

"I told you," answered M. "that you would never know their author. Love, however, of every kind, and sorrow of some kinds, dispose the mind to versify; and the last made me a poet for the first, and, with one exception, the only time in my life."

G. was silent, for there was an expression in the countenance of M. which showed him that he was endeavouring to cast his cares upon the same bosom where his child was laid.

"There, take the verses, my Gustavus," continued M. "This you may believe, that I have not adorned my child with qualities which did not belong to him :—there was in him a seed of piety which promised every thing. One day I saw him a wholesome plant-his root spread around him, and the dew lay upon his branches-I passed by, but his place knew him no more. Take the verses; and if they show you that I am no poet, they will, at least, convince you, that He who took my child, had mercifully taught me how to lose him.

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Yes-thou art fled, and saints a welcome sing; Thine infant spirit soars on angel wing:

"Our dark affection might have hop'd thy stay,. "The voice of God has call'd his child away ;Like Samuel early in the temple found, 'Sweet rose of Sharon, plant of holy ground, 'O! more than Samuel bless'd, to thee 'tis given The God he serv'd on earth, to serve in heaven.""

Gustavus had read these lines, and was musing upon them, whilst M. sat plunged in thought. At