270 JAMAICA, ' 



then fall on the guilty, and not on the planter. He is to thank 

 his mother- country for difgorging upon him fuch wretches as fome- 

 times undertake the management of Wefl-India properties; and, 

 by wanton torture infli<5ted on the flaves confided to their charge 

 (the refult of their own unprincipled hearts and abominable tem- 

 pers), bring an unmerited cenfure on the gentlemen proprietors, 

 who are no further culpable than in too often giving this employ- 

 ment to the outcafts of fociety, becaufe, it may happen, they can 

 get none better. 



America has long been made the very common fewer and dung- 

 yard to Britain. Is it not therefore rather ungenerous and unmanly, 

 that the planter fliould be vilified, by Britifla men, for the crimes 

 and execrable mifdeeds of Britiih refugees ! It is hard upon him 

 ,to fufter this two-fold injury, tirft by the wafle of his fortune in 

 the hands of a worthlefs fervant, and next by fuch unfair imputa- 

 tions upon his charadler. There is, I allow, no country exifting 

 without fome inhuman mifcreants to difhonour it. England gives 

 birth to fuch, as well as other flates ; but I would not, from this 

 reafon, argue that every Englifliman is (according to Voltaire) a 

 favage. 



The planters do not want to be told, that their Negroes are hu- 

 man creatures. If they believe them to be of human kind, they 

 cannot regard them (which Mr. Sharpe infills they do) as no better 

 than dogs or horl'es. But how many poor wretches, even in Eng- 

 Vland, are treated with far lefs care and humanity than thele brute 

 animals! I could wifh the planters had not too much realbn on 

 their fide to retort the obloquy, and charge multitudes in that king- 

 dom with neglecting the juft refpeft which they owe to their own 

 fpecies, when they fuffer many around them to be perfecuted with 

 unrelenting tyranny in various fliapes, and others to perifh in gaols, 

 for want of common neccliinies ; whilft no expence is thought too 

 great to beflow on tlie well-being of their dogs and horfes. But, 

 to have done with thefe odious comparifons, 1 fhall only add, that 

 a planter fmiles with difdain to hear himfelf calumniated for tyran- 

 nical behaviour to his Negroes. He would wifh the defamer might 

 be prefent, to obferve with what freedom and confidence they ad- 

 drefs him ; not with the abje*5l prolhation of real flaves, but as 

 4 their 



