Such are the _colonial delights_, by the representation of which the _receivers_ would persuade us, that the _Africans_ are taken from their country to a region of conviviality and mirth; and that like those, who leave their usual places of residence for a summer's amusement, they are conveyed to the colonies--_to bathe_,--_to dance_,--_to keep holy-day_,--_to be jovial_.--But there is something so truly ridiculous in the attempt to impose these scenes of felicity on the publick, as scenes which fall to the lot of slaves, that the _receivers_ must have been driven to great extremities, to hazard them to the eye of censure.
The last point that remains to be considered, is the shameful assertion, that the _Africans_ are much _happier in the colonies, than in their own country_. But in what does this superiour happiness consist? In those real scenes, it must be replied, which have been just mentioned; for these, by the confession of the receivers, constitute the happiness they enjoy.--But it has been shewn that these have been unfairly represented; and, were they realized in the most extensive latitude, they would not confirm the fact. For if, upon a recapitulation, it consists in the pleasure of _manumission_, they surely must have passed their lives in a much more comfortable manner, who, like the _Africans at home_, have had no occasion for such a benefit at all. But the _receivers_, we presume, reason upon this principle, that we never know the value of a blessing but by its loss. This is generally true: but would any one of them make himself a _slave_ for years, that he might run the chance of the pleasures of _manumission_? Or that he might taste the charms of liberty with _a greater relish_? Nor is the assertion less false in every other consideration. For if their happiness consists in the few _holy-days_, which _in the colonies_ they are permitted to enjoy, what must be their situation _in their own country_, where the whole year is but one continued holy-day, or cessation from discipline and fatigue?--If in the possession of _a mean and contracted spot_, what must be their situation, where a whole region is their own, producing almost spontaneously the comforts of life, and requiring for its cultivation none of those hours, which should be appropriated to _sleep_?--If in the pleasures of the _colonial dance_, what must it be in _their own country_, where they may dance for ever; where there is no stated hour to interrupt their felicity, no intolerable labour immediately to succeed their recreations, and no overseer to receive them under the discipline of the lash?--If these therefore are the only circumstances, by which the assertion can be proved, we may venture to say, without fear of opposition, that it can never be proved at all.