BOOK III. CHAP. III. 471 



Such a bill, If pafled into a law, would doubtlefs have ftruck at the 

 very root of the evil ; for, by laying a duty equal to a prohibition, no 

 more Coromantins would have been brought to infeft this country ; 

 but, inflead of their favage race, the ifland would have been fupplied 

 with Blacks of a more docile, tradable difpofition, and better inclined 

 to peace and agriculture ; fo that, in a few years, the ifland might in all 

 likelihood have been effedunlly freed of all fuch dangerous comblT 

 nations. Whether the conceit of fome few planters, in regard to the. 

 fuperior ftrength of the Coromantins, and greater hardinefs to fupport 

 field labour, ought to outweigh the public tranquillity and fafety, or 

 fhould be thought to atone for the blood of murthered white inhabi- 

 tants, the ruin of others, the defolation of eftates, and the into- 

 lerable charges of taxation thereby thrown iipon the public, not to 

 fpeak of the obftruftion of all trade and bufinefs during the martial 

 law, miift be left to the ferious confideration of a difpaffionate legifla- 

 ture ; the fupprellion of the Coromantins, in 1760 and i76i,cofl:the 

 ifland i 5,000 /. I have before eftimated the expence of making good 

 lofles fuftained, &c. at 100,000/..; and the ereding of parochial bar- 

 racks, in confequence of. that infurreftion, coft as much more. In the 

 whole, the ifland expended not much Icfs on that account than ap- 

 pears from the earlieil accounts to have been difburfed on the reduc- 

 tion of the Marons ; fonhh was no more than 240,000/. 



No bill however was paffed, the meafure was oppofed, and it 

 dropped ; but the firft fruits of this oppofition burfl: forth the very 

 next year (1766), in a frefli difturbance, that happened on a gentle- 

 man's eftate in WeRmoreland ; where thirty-three Coromantins (for 

 no other were concerned), moft of whom had been newly imports 

 ed, fuddenly rofe, and, in the fpace of an hour, murthered, and 

 wounded, no lefs than nineteen white perfons; but they were foon. 

 defeated, fome killed, and the remainder executed or tranfported. Sq 

 that the owner fuftained a very confiderable lofs, and would him- 

 felf have fallen a facrifiee, had he been on the eftate ; for they entered 

 his dewelllng-houfe, and hacked every thing they found in it to pieces. 

 If fuch reiterated examples will not convince men of their errors, we. 

 muft fay, with an old Latin author, that, 



^os Deus vidt perdere, frlui dementat, . 



It 



