Can you help respecting those negroes? If you can, I pity you. Since the condition of slaves is such as I have described, are you surprised at occasional insurrections? You may _regret_ it most deeply; but _can_ you wonder at it. The famous Captain Smith, when he was a slave in Tartary, killed his overseer and made his escape. I never heard him blamed for it--it seems to be universally considered a simple act of self-defence. The same thing has often occurred with regard to white men taken by the Algerines. The Poles have shed Russian "blood enough to float our navy;" and we admire and praise them, because they did it in resistance of oppression. Yet they have suffered less than black slaves, all the world over, are suffering. We honor our forefathers because they rebelled against certain principles dangerous to political freedom; yet from actual, personal tyranny, they suffered nothing: the negro on the contrary, is suffering all that oppression _can_ make human nature suffer. Why do we execrate in one set of men, what we laud so highly in another? I shall be reminded that insurrections and murders are totally at variance with the precepts of our religion; and this is most true. But according to this rule, the Americans, Poles, Parisians, Belgians, and all who have shed blood for the sake of liberty, are more to blame than the negroes; for the former are more enlightened, and can always have access to the fountain of religion; while the latter are kept in a state of brutal ignorance--not allowed to read their Bibles--knowing nothing of Christianity, except the examples of their masters, who profess to be governed by its maxims. I hope I shall not be misunderstood on this point. I am not vindicating insurrections and murders; the very thought makes my blood run cold. I believe revenge is _always_ wicked; but I say, what the laws of every country acknowledge, that great provocations are a palliation of great crimes. When a man steals food because he is starving, we are more disposed to pity, than to blame him. And what _can_ human nature do, subject to continual and oppressive wrong--hopeless of change--not only unprotected by law, but the law itself changed into an enemy--and to complete the whole, shut out from the instructions and consolations of the Gospel! No wonder the West India missionaries found it very difficult to decide what they ought to say to the poor, suffering negroes! They could indeed tell them it was very impolitic to be rash and violent, because it could not, under existing circumstances, make their situation better, and would be very likely to make it worse; but if they urged the maxims of religion, the slaves might ask the embarrassing question, is not our treatment in direct opposition to the precepts of the gospel? Our masters can read the Bible--they have a chance to know better. Why do not Christians deal justly by us, before they require us to deal mercifully with them?