necessity to do either the one thing, or the other; but, for aught that appears, might have disposed of his prisoner in some more humane manner. The _onus probandi_, then, or burden of proof, to show that in point of fact the captor and vender of any African slave, _was_, in any case whatever, in the precise predicament supposed, must be on the Annotator; and can he bear it? Hardly, I suppose. But of what avail, then, can it be to his argument, that he can _imagine_ or _invent_ a case, (or a hundred cases, if he likes,) in which there _might have been_ a lawful origin of slavery, when he evidently cannot show that any thing like it has ever occurred in fact, from the first beginning of the slave trade down to the present time? Thus it appears that the reasoning of Blackstone to prove the unlawfulness of slavery in its origin, is as strong as we have always thought it; and very easily defends itself against all that any ingenuity can urge against it. But say that it is not so; and grant, if you please, for the sake of argument, that it is all "a specious fallacy" indeed; what then? Does it follow that slavery _as it exists in our state_, was just and lawful _in its origin_? By no means. For say that Mr. Dew has by some miraculous effort of intellect, very clearly established, in the face of Blackstone's demonstration, (and in the face of our Bill of Rights also,) that a man _can_ sell himself; can it be shown that, in point of fact, any single one of the slaves who were imported into our colony from the year 1620 to the revolution, _had_ actually sold himself to any one who claimed to be his owner? And say, also, that the Annotator has proved, against the unanswerable argument of his author, (and against the plainest principles of the law of nature,) that a conqueror may justly enslave and export his prisoner of war in any imaginable case whatever, can it be made to appear that any one of the Africans brought to our shore was really captured, and sold, in such a state of things? On the contrary, we have unhappily the most ample evidence from history, that the whole of our exotic slaves were either stolen from their native woods, and brought away against their will, or under false and fraudulent promises which were never performed; or bought for swords and rum, (fit price for such articles!) from those who had captured them, not in just and necessary wars of self-defence, but in predatory hostilities, excited and fomented for the very purpose, by the worst of pirates, the foulest and most deadly enemies of the human race.