And they are very unexpert at the
bow, which the negroes and the Indians are perfect masters of.
Caesar, having singled out these men from the women and children,
made an harangue to 'em, of the miseries and ignominies of slavery;
counting up all their toils and sufferings, under such loads, burdens,
and drudgeries as were fitter for beasts than men; senseless brutes,
than human souls. He told 'em, it was not for days, months, or
years, but for eternity; there was no end to be of their
misfortunes: they suffered not like men who might find a glory and
fortitude in oppression; but like dogs, that loved the whip and
bell, and fawned the more they were beaten: that they had lost the
divine quality of men, and were become insensible asses, fit only to
bear: nay, worse; an ass, or dog, or horse, having done his duty could
lie down in retreat, and rise to work again, and while he did his
duty, endured no stripes; but men, villainous, senseless men, such
as they, toiled on all the tedious week till Black Friday: and then,
whether they worked or not, whether they were faulty or meriting,
they, promiscuously, the innocent with the guilty, suffered the
infamous whip, the sordid stripes, from their fellow-slaves, till
their blood trickled from all parts of their body; blood, whose
every drop ought to be revenged with a life of some of those tyrants
that impose it. "And why," said he, "my dear friends and
fellow-sufferers, should we be slaves to an unknown people? Have
they vanquished us nobly in fight? Have they won us in honorable
battle? And are we by the chance of war become their slaves? This
would not anger a noble heart; this would not animate a soldiers soul:
no, but we are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport
of women, fools, and cowards; and the support of rogues and runagates,
that have abandoned their own countries for rapine, murders, theft,
and villainies.
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