Art. 46. The Negroe equalled by few Europeans.
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: November 1790

Elizabeth Moody Art. 46. The Negroe equalled by few Europeans. Translated from the French. 12mo. 3 Vols. 9s. Sewed. Robinsons. 1790. [[Joseph Lavallée] The Monthly Review , second series, vol. 3, November 1790, pp. 348-349. Benjamin Nangle identifies Elizabeth Moody as the author of this review from an editor's marked copy of The Monthly Review . See Nangle, The Montly Review, Second Series, 1790-1815: Indexes of Contributors and Articles , Clarendon Press, 1955. Jonathan Pinkerton and Mary A. Waters prepared this edition for The Criticism Archive.]

Among a variety of incidents, this story contains some that are interesting and amusing: but what must principally recommend it to those readers whose hearts partake of the milk of human kindness, is the gentle and amiable spirit of benevolence that seems to inspire the pen of the author: most pathetically does it plead the cause of that unfortunate race, whose wretched existence has for many years been made subservient to the purposes of fostering the base passions of avarice and pride. If Negroes were indeed such as this author represents them, so superior are they in virtue to Europeans, that instead of being our slaves, they ought to be our masters: the picture, however, we fancy, is too highly coloured. Itanoka, the principal figure, verifies what the title of the book asserts; he is indeed a Negroe equalled by few Europeans ; possessing a portion of virtue that borders on a monopoly; and we cannot help wishing that some of it could be brought to our market, and distributed among our white brethren. Itanoka, after having encountered various misfortunes, (brought on him by the perfidy and ingratitude of Europeans,) becomes, by a sudden transition from adversity to prosperity, the master of a plantation, and the ruler over slaves whose fellow-slave he had been. This revolution affords him an opportunity of contrasting his amiable humanity with the diabolical tyranny and oppression of the European masters; whose injustice and barbarity to the poor Africans, he frequently (with what truth or justice we know not,) describes, and as frequently reprobates. 'If riches,' says he, addressing himself to them, 'which offer the means of solacing human miseries, have served to harden your minds; if the sciences, whose object is to enlighten men, have but increased your pride; if your compassionate religion has no influence on your hearts; you must be the most vile, the most corrupt of men; to possess all the treasures which can give energy to virtue, and to turn them all into the means of vice! It is a degree of depravity, of which the whole world beside gives no example.'

It is painful to us to dwell on the instances of cruelty here said to have been inflicted by the white people, on a feeble, subdued, defenceless race; to read of whips and scourges, hard labour, short allowances of food and sleep, joined to the loss of liberty, and the separation from friends and dearest connections. We must therefore dismiss the melancholy subject, and seek relief in the consolatory hope, that religion and morality will diffuse the light of their truths more and more on European hearts; and lead them to consider that humanity is a principle which not only endears man most to his fellow-creatures, but is undoubtedly that which will make him most acceptable to his Creator; and that however men may be induced to suppose themselves authorized by prejudice, custom, and the law of nations, to usurp a dominion over the unhappy Negroes, and to exercise that dominion with injustice—whatever appeal they may make from their consciences to these tribunals, let them remember, that an hour will most assuredly come, when they will be judged at a tribunal from which there will be no appeal.