Negroes are a species of beings whom nature seems to have intended for slavery; their pliancy of temper, patience under injury, and innate passiveness, all concur to justify this position; unlike the savages or aborigines of America, who could never be brought to servile controul. This colony of Louisiana, offers a philosophic and instructive spectacle on this subject, from which I shall make a number of deductions. If nature had imparted the same instinct to negroes that she has to savages, it is certain that, instead of subjecting themselves mechanically to the eternal labours of the field, and the discipline of an imperious task-master, they would abandon those places (to which they are not chained), and gaining the woods, encamp themselves in the interior of the country; in this imitating the savages, or aborigines, who sooner than live in the vicinity of the whites, retire at their approach. Is it the uncertainty of a subsistence in this new mode of life, that deters them from undertaking it? They have never any solicitude for their future support. Is it the fear of being pursued and overtaken that is an obstacle to the project? Ignorant as they are, they cannot but know that, protected by almost impenetrable woods, and formidable in numbers, they might set at defiance a handful of whites. Does the apprehension of being combated by the Indians damp their enterprize? Such a chimera could never affright them, since the Indians roving in detached parties, would be the first to flee; nay, they would probably court their union, there having been instances of negroes finding an asylum among them, but after a lapse of time, unworthy to enjoy freedom, the fugitives have returned to their plantation, like a dog, who, having escaped from his kennel, returns to it by an instinct of submission. To multiply comparisons, as the ox resigns himself to his yoke, so the negro bends to his burden. Their defect in instinct is apparent. Could the Indians be ever brought to that state of slavery which the negroes bear without repining; every method hitherto practiced to deprive them of their liberty, has been ineffectual.