[Footnote 052: There are instances on the African continent, of _parents_ selling their _children_. As the slaves of this description are so few, and are so irregularly obtained, we did not think it worth our while to consider them as forming an order; and, as God never gave the parent a power over his child to make him _miserable_, we trust that any farther mention of them will be unnecessary.] [Footnote 053: Abbè Raynal, Hist. Phil. vol. 4. P. 154.] * * * * * CHAP. IX. It remains only now to examine by what arguments those, who _receive_ or _purchase_ their fellow-creatures into slavery, defend the _commerce_. Their first plea is, "that they receive those with propriety, who are convicted of crimes, because they are delivered into their hands by _their own magistrates_." But what is this to you _receivers_? Have the unfortunate _convicts_ been guilty of injury to _you_? Have they broken _your_ treaties? Have they plundered _your_ ships? Have they carried _your_ wives and children into slavery, that _you_ should thus retaliate? Have they offended _you_ even by word or gesture? But if the African convicts are innocent with respect to you; if you have not even the shadow of a claim upon their persons; by what right do you receive them? "By the laws of the Africans," you will say; "by which it is positively allowed."--But can _laws_ alter the nature of vice? They may give it a sanction perhaps: it will still be immutably the same, and, though dressed in the outward habiliments of _honour_, will still be _intrinsically base_.