The prisoner's counsel have attempted to prove that this had been a
common practice in that country. And though possibly some person as
wicked as Colonel Hannay might have been there before at some time or
other, no man ever sold his children but under the pressure of some
cruel exaction. Nature calls out against it. The love that God has
implanted in the heart of parents towards their children is the first
germ of that second conjunction which He has ordered to subsist between
them and the rest of mankind. It is the first formation and first bond
of society. It is stronger than all laws; for it is the law of Nature,
which is the law of God. Never did a man sell his children who was able
to maintain them. It is, therefore, not only a proof of his exactions,
but a decisive proof that these exactions were intolerable.
Next to the love of parents for their children, the strongest instinct,
both natural and moral, that exists in man, is the love of his country:
an instinct, indeed, which extends even to the brute creation. All
creatures love their offspring; next to that they love their homes: they
have a fondness for the place where they have been bred, for the
habitations they have dwelt in, for the stalls in which they have been
fed, the pastures they have browsed in, and the wilds in which they have
roamed.
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