4it

MASTER AND SLAVE.

Master. Now, villain! what have you to say for this
econd attempt to run away? Is there any punish-
ment that you do not deserve P

Slave. I well know that nothing I can say will avail.
I submit to my fate. - :

Mf. But are you not a base fellow, a hardened and
ungrateful rascal P

S. Lama slave. That is answer enough. 7

AZ. Lam not content with that answer. I thought
I discerned in you some tokens of a mind superior to
your condition. I treated you accordingly. You have
been comfortably fed and lodged, not overworked, and
attended with the most humane care when you were
sick. And is this the return ?P

S. Smee you condescend to talk with me as man to
man, I will reply. What have you done—what can
you do for me, that will compensate for the liberty
which you have taken away ?

M. I did not take it away. You were a slave when
I fairly purchased you.

S. Did I give my consent to the purchase P

MM. You had no consent to give. You had already
lost the right of disposing of yourself.

S..I had lost the power; but how the right? I
was treacherously kidnapped in my own country when
following an honest occupation. I was put in chains,
sold to one of your countrymen, carried by force on
board his ship, brought hither and exposed to sale hke
a beast in the market, where you bought me. What
step in all this progress of violence and injustice can
give a right ? Was it in the villa who stole me, in
the slave-merchant who tempted him to do so, or in
you who encouraged the slave-merchant to bring his
cargo of human cattle to cultivate your lands P