FIRST EDITION. XXlU 



markable indeed is the want of information in this respect, 

 even among persons of the most extensive general knowledge, 

 that in a law question which came by appeal from one of the 

 Sugar islands a few years ago, the noble and learned earl who 

 presided at the hearing, thinking it necessary to give some ac- 

 count of the nature of rum and melasses, (much being stated 

 in the pleadings concerning the value of those commodities), 

 assured his auditors with great solemnity, that " melasses was 

 the raw and unconcocted juice extracted from the cane, and 

 from which sugar was afterwards made by boiling !"* 



On the subject of the slave trade, and its concomitant cir- 

 cumstances, so much has been said of late by others, that it 

 may be supposed there remains but Hide to be added by me. 

 It is certain, however, that my account, both of the trade and 

 the situation of the enslaved negroes in the British colonies, 

 differs very essentially from the representations that have been 

 given, not only in a great variety of pamphlets and other publi- 

 cations, but also by many of the witnesses that were examined 

 before the house of commons* The public must judge between 

 us, and I should be in no pain about the result, if the charac- 

 ters of some of those persons who have stood forth on this 

 occasion as accusers of the resident planters, were as well 

 known in Great Britain, as they are in the West Indies. 

 What I have written on these subjects has, at least this advan- 

 tage, that great part of my observations are founded on per- 

 sonal knowledge and actual experience: and with regard to 

 the manners and dispositions of the native Africans, as distin- 

 guished by national habits, and characteristic features, I ven- 

 ture to think, that my remarks will be found both new and in- 

 teresting. 



After all, my first object has been truth, not novelty. I 

 have endeavoured to collect useful knowledge wheresoever it 

 lay, and when J found books that supplied what I sought, I 



* I give this anecdote on the authority of a Jamaica gentleman 

 was present^ a person of undoubted verachy, 



