Wesley Corpus

6. This in general. But to be more particular, I ask, 1. What is necessary? And secondly, To what end? It may be answered, “The whole method now used by the original purchasers of negroes, is necessary to the furnishing our colonies yearly with a hundred thousand slaves.” I grant this is necessary to that end. But how is that end necessary? How will you prove it necessary that one hundred, that _one_ of those slaves should be procured? “Why, it is necessary to my gaining an hundred thousand pounds.” Perhaps so: but how is _this_ necessary? It is very possible you might be both a better and a happier man, if you had not a quarter of it. I deny that your gaining one thousand is necessary, either to your present or eternal happiness. “But however you must allow, these slaves are necessary for the cultivation of our Islands: inasmuch as white men are not able to labour in hot climates.” I answer, 1. It were better that all those Islands should remain uncultivated for ever, yea, it were more desirable that they were altogether sunk in the depth of the sea, than that they should be cultivated at so high a price, as the violation of justice, mercy and truth. But, secondly, the supposition on which you ground your argument is false. For white men, even _English_ men, are well able to labour in hot climates: provided they are temperate both in meat and drink, and that they inure themselves to it by degrees. I speak no more than I know by experience. It appears from the thermometer, that the summer heat in _Georgia_, is frequently equal to that in _Barbadoes_, yea to that under the line. And yet I and my family (eight in number) did employ all our spare time there, in felling of trees and clearing of ground, as hard labour as any negro need be employed in. The _German_ family likewise, forty in number, were employed in all manner of labour. And this was so far from impairing our health, that we all continued perfectly well, while the idle ones round about us, were swept away as with a pestilence. It is not true therefore that white men are not able to labour, even in hot climates, full as well as black.