tbey  should  be  made  responsible  for  the  loss  of  their  master's  pro*
perty,  and  thereby  kept  in  perpetual  bondage,  without  ever  receiving;
any  wages  ?  Why  they  should  be  treated  as  vagabonds,  and  be  liable
to  be  disposed  of  at  the  pleasure  of  any  local  functionary  in  whose
district  tney  mqy  reside,  if  they  do  not  hire  themselves  to  a  master  ?
Why  they  should  be  given  to  any  master,  by  such  an  authority!  with-
out ever  having  been  consulted  on  the  subject?  Why  they  should
be  liable  to  have  their  homes  violated,  their  children  torn  from  them,
and  from  the  arms  of  their  distracted  mothers,  without  having  the
smallest  chance  of  redress?  Why  they  should  be  denied,  by  the
justice  and  humanity  of  Britain,  the  boon  prepared  for  them  by  the
Batavian  Government,  when  the  Cape  of  Stood  Hope  fell  into  the
hands  of  the  English?  And  why  these  intolerable  oppressions
should  continue  to  be  imposed  upon  them,  in  direct  violation  of  the
proclamation  of  the  colonial  government,  declaring,  that  the  original
natives  of  the  country,  the  Hottentots,  must  be  considered  and
treated  as  a  free  people,  who  have  a  lawful  abode  in  the  colony;  and
wJiose  persons,  property,  and  possessions  ought,  for  that  reason,  to
be  protected,  the  same  as  other  free  people?  The  interest  of  the
colony  cannot  require  that  such  a  system  of  cruel  oppression  should
be  continued;  and  it  is  impossible  that  the  justice,  the  humanity,
and  the  magnanimity  of  the  British  Government,  can  suffer  longer
that  evils  so  enormous  should  exist  in  any  of  its  foreign  dependen-
cies/   Vol.  L  pp.  400—402.
