large parties cannot be collected for this purpose, a few friends will
combine together, and advance into the enemy's country, with a view to
plunder, or carry off the inhabitants. A single individual has been known
to take his bow and quiver, and proceed in like manner. Such an attempt
is doubtless in him an act of rashness; but when it is considered that in
one of these predatory wars, he has probably been deprived of his child,
or his nearest relation, his situation will rather call for pity than
censure. The poor sufferer, urged on by the feelings of domestic or
paternal attachment, and the ardour of revenge, conceals himself among
the bushes, until some young or unarmed person passes by. He then,
tiger-like, springs upon his prey; drags his victim into the thicket, and
in the night carries him off as a slave.

When a Negro has, by means like these, once fallen into the hands of his
enemies, he is either retained as the slave of his conqueror, or bartered
into a distant kingdom; for an African, when he has once subdued his
enemy, will seldom give him an opportunity of lifting up his hand against
him at a future period. A conqueror commonly disposes of his captives
according to the rank which they held in their native kingdom. Such of
the domestic slaves as appear to be of a mild disposition, and
particularly the young women, are retained as his own slaves. Others that
display marks of discontent are disposed of in a distant country; and
such of the freemen or slaves, as have taken an active part in the war,
are either sold to the Slatees or put to death. War, therefore, is
certainly the most general and most productive source of slavery; and the
desolations of war often (but not always) produce the second cause of
slavery, _famine_; in which case a freeman becomes a slave to avoid a
greater calamity.

Perhaps, by a philosophic and reflecting mind, death itself would