With a justice and generosity, _never I believe before heard of among slavers_, we gave those their liberty whom we had taken up, setting them on shore on the Barbary side, among the poor residue of their companions, who had survived the slaughter of the morning." We shall make but two remarks on this horrid instance of African cruelty.

It adds, first, a considerable weight to the statements that have been made; and confirms, secondly, the conclusions that were drawn in the preceding chapter.

For if we even allow the right of capture to be just, and the principles of reparation and punishment to be applicable to the individuals of a community, yet would the former be unjust, and the latter inapplicable, in the present case.

Every African war is a robbery; and we may add, to our former expression, when we said, "that thus have many thousands of men, in the most iniquitous manner, been sent into servitude," that we believe there are few of this order, who are not as much the examples of injustice, as the people that have been kidnapped; and who do not additionally convey, when we consider them as prisoners of war, an idea of the most complicated scene of murder.
The order of _convicts_, as it exists almost solely among those princes, whose dominions are contiguous to the European factories, is from this circumstance so inconsiderable, when compared with either of the preceding, that we should not have mentioned it again, but that we were unwilling to omit any additional argument that occurred against it.
It has been shewn already, that the punishment of slavery is inflicted from no other motive, than that of gratifying the _avarice_ of the prince, a confederation so detestable, as to be sufficient of itself to prove it to be unjust; and that it is so disproportionate, from its _nature_, to the offence, as to afford an additional proof of its injustice.

We shall add now, as a second argument, its disproportion from its _continuance:_ and we shall derive a third from the consideration, that, in civil society, every violation of the laws of the community is an offence against the _state_[050].
Let us suppose then an African prince, disdaining for once the idea of emolument: let us suppose him for once inflamed with the love of his country, and resolving to punish from this principle alone, "that by exhibiting an example of terrour, he may preserve that _happiness of the publick_, which he is bound to secure and defend by the very nature of his contract; or, in other words, that he may answer the end of government." If actuated then by this principle, he should adjudge slavery to an offender, as a just punishment for his offence, for whose benefit must the convict labour?
If it be answered, "for the benefit of the state," we allow that the punishment, in whatever light it is considered, will be found to be equitable: but if it be answered, "for the benefit of any _individual whom he pleases to appoint_," we deny it to be just.