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It is not therefore the Victory, that giveth the right of Dominion over the Vanquished, but his own Covenant. And then onely is his life in security, and his service due, when the Victor hath trusted him with his corporall liberty. For Slaves that work in Prisons, or Fetters, do it not of duty, but to avoyd the cruelty of their task-masters.
These mud huts were speedily christened with high-falutin names. There were "Sans Souci" villa and the "Haven of Rest" and others equally wildly and inappropriately named. But we considered this an excellent chance "to wax sarcastic," and we let ourselves go, although I do not think that our task-masters, being by nature dense, grasped the purport of our humour.
Where the master did not personally supervise his slaves and left them to the mercies of a hired "over-seer," their lot was usually much worse, as these task-masters were almost always tyranical and were not restrained by a sense of ownership from abusing the helpless creatures under their authority as were the master's, whose money was invested in them.
They are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel task-masters, who, by their unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs, and made long furrows, and at length brought them even unto death.
And altho' the same degree of opposition to instructing the Negroes may not now appear in the islands as formerly, especially since the Society appointed for propagating the Gospel have possessed a number of Negroes in one of them; nevertheless the situation of these oppressed people is yet dreadful, as well to themselves as in its consequence to their hard task-masters, and their offspring, as must be evident to every impartial person who is acquainted with the treatment they generally receive, or with the laws which from time to time have been made in the colonies, with respect to the Negroes; some of them being absolutely inconsistent with reason, and shocking to humanity.
Oh, the old, old memories of those hideous times! How little they wounded or troubled our boyish minds, as we, bent on some fishing or hunting venture along the coast, walked along a road which had been first soddened by tears and then dried by the panting, anguished breathings of beings fashioned in the image of their Creator, as they toiled and died under the brutal hands of their savage task-masters the civilian officials of that cruel "System" which, by the irony of fate, the far-seeing, gentle, and tender-hearted Arthur Phillip, the founder of Australia, was first appointed to administer.
The only exercise of reason allowed among such, is a sort of instinct which will enable them to perform all kinds of drudgery, and to act with scrupulous fidelity to their unkind, very often brutal and faithless, husbands task-masters would be the better name. Of women under such rule, it may truly be said, the grave is their best, their only friend.
The horrible traffic in slaves has been carried on from the west coast of Africa to the American continent since Sir John Hawkins shipped his first cargo of blacks for the Spanish settlements, to supply the loss of the mild and yielding natives of the New World destroyed by the avarice and cruelty of their task-masters.
Hard task-masters though they undoubtedly were, some of them were wont to turn aside and look another way when any of the poor slaves sat down for a few minutes, overcome with exhaustion. There was little opportunity allowed, however, for intercourse among the unfortunates.
The great singularity is the struggle between their natural and their acquired feelings: the eager opportunity which they seize of revenging their voluntary bondage, by their secret taunts, on their adopted task-masters, and the servility which they habitually mix up even with their scandal.
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