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744 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

victims, or that the sword of the law should fall till it is
clogged with massacre. Antonio Ferrer is plainly but a ser-
vant. He is set down as a free black in the ship’s papers, but
that ia no proof that he is free. Were he a alave, he would in
all probability be represented as free, and this for obvious
reasons. He is in all probability a slave, and a native Afri-
ean, as the tattooing on his face proves beyond a dowbt. At
auy rate, he is but a servant. Now will you make misfortune
pay the penalty of guilt? Do not, I entreat you, lightly con-
demn this man to death. Do not throw him in to make up
the dozen. The regard for human life is one of the most
prominent proofs of a civilized state of society. The Sultan
of Turkey may place women in sacks and throw them into
the Bosphorus, without exciting more than an hour’s addi-
tional conversation at Constantinople. But in our country
it is different. You well remember the excitement produced
by the abduction and death of a single individual; the con-
valsion which ensued, the effect of which will long be felt in
our political institutions. You will ever find that the more
a nation becomes civilized, the greater becomes the regard for
human life. There is in the eye, the form, and heaven-di-
rected countenance of man, something holy, that forbids he
should be rndely touched.

The instinct of life ts great. The light of the sun, even in
chaing, is pleasant; and life, though supported but by the
damp exhalations of a dungeon, is desirable. Often, too, we
eling with added tenacity to life in proportion as we are de-
prived of all that makes existence to be coveted.

“The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment

Can lay on Nature, is a Paradise
To that we fear of Death.”

Death is a fearful thing, The mere mention of it some-
times blanches the cheek, and sends the fearful blood to the
heart. It is a solemn thing to break into the ‘“‘bloody house
of life.” Do not, because this man is but an African, im-
agine that hia existence is valueless. He is no drift weed on

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