QUERY XIV.

refort to their evidence. When a mafter was murdered, all his flaves, in the fame houfe, or within hearing, were condemned to death. Here puni(hment falls on the guilty only, and as precife proof is required againfl: him as againfl a freeman. Yet notvvithftanding thefe and other difcouraging circumftances among the Romans, their flaves were often their rarefl: artifts. They excelled too in fcience, infomuch as to be ufually employed as tutors to their maflier's children. Epiftetus, Terence, and Phsedrus, were flaves. But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the difliindion.—Whether further obfervation will or will not verify the conjedure, that nature has been lefs bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in thofe of the heart flie will be found to have done them juftice. That difpofition to theft with which they have been branded, muft be afcribed to their fituation, and not to any depravity of the moral fenfe. The man, in whofe favour no laws of property exift, probably feels himfelf lefs bound to refpeft thofe made in favour of others. When arguing for ourfelves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be juft, muft give a reciprocation of right;