Whatever deductions may be made from familiar stories of White
Slavery,--allowing that it was mitigated by the genial influence
of Mahometanism,--that the captives were well clad and well fed,
much better than free Christians there,--that they were permitted
opportunities of Christian worship,--that they were often treated
with lenity and affectionate care,--that they were sometimes advanced
to posts of responsibility and honor,--and that they were known, in
contentment or stolidity, to become indifferent to freedom,--still
the institution or custom is hardly less hateful. Slavery, in all
its forms, even under mildest influences, is a wrong and a curse. No
accidental gentleness of the master can make it otherwise. Against it
reason, experience, the heart of man, all cry out. "Disguise thyself as
thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a bitter draught; and though
thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less
bitter on that account."[169] Algerine Slavery was a violation of the
Law of Nature and of God. It was a usurpation of rights not granted to
man.
"O execrable son, so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given!
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."[170]
[169] Sterne, Sentimental Journey: _The Passport: The Hotel at
Paris_.
[170] Paradise Lost, Book XII. 64-71.
Such a God-defying relation could not fail to accumulate disaster
upon all in any way parties to it; for injustice and wrong are fatal
alike to doer and sufferer. Notoriously in Algiers it exerted a most
pernicious influence on master as well as slave. The slave was crushed
and degraded, his intelligence abased, even his love of freedom
extinguished. The master, accustomed from childhood to revolting
inequalities of condition, was exalted into a mood of unconscious
arrogance and self-confidence inconsistent with the virtues of a pure
and upright character. Unlimited power is apt to stretch towards
license; and the wives and daughters of white slaves were often pressed
to be the concubines of Algerine masters.[171]
[171] Noah's Travels, pp. 248, 253. Quarterly Review, Vol. XV.
p. 168.--Among the concubines of a prince of Morocco were two
slaves of the age of fifteen, one English and the other French.
(Lempriere's Tour, p. 147.) The fate of "one Mrs. Shaw, an Irish
woman," is given in words hardly polite enough to be quoted. She
was swept into the harem of Muley Ismael, who "forced her to turn
Moor; ... but soon after, having taken a dislike to her, he gave
her to a soldier."--Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 191
It is well, then, that it has passed away. The Barbary States seem less
barbarous, when we no longer discern this cruel oppression.