METHODS OF AMELIORATION. 273 



of affection which for the most part characterize the African 

 race, finds that after his labour some care is taken of him 

 nnridst his indigent family, is in a position not to be compared 

 with that of the insulated slave lost in the mass. This diver- 

 sity of condition escapes the notice of those who have not 

 had the spectacle of the West Indies before their eyes. 

 Owing to the progressive amelioration of the state even of 

 the captive caste in the island of Cuba, the luxury of the 

 masters, and the possibility of gain by their work, have drawn 

 more than eighty thousand slaves to the towns ; and the 

 manumission of them, favoured by the wisdom of the laws, is 

 become so active as to have produced, at the present period, 

 more than 130,000 free men of colour. By considering the 

 individual position of each class, by recompensing, by the 

 decreasing scale of privations, intelligence, love of labour, 

 and the domestic, virtues, the colonial administration will 

 find the best means of improving the condition of the blacks. 

 Philanthropy does not consist in giving " a little more salt- 

 fish, and some fewer lashes:" the real amelioration of the 

 captive caste ought to extend over the whole moral and phy- 

 sical position of man. 



The impulse may be given by those European governments 

 which have a right comprehension of human dignity, and 

 who know that whatever is unjust bears with it a germ of 

 destruction ; but this impulse, it is melancholy to add, will 

 be powerless, if the union of the planters, if the colonial 

 assemblies or legislatures, fail to adopt the same views, and 

 to act by a well-concerted plan, having for its ultimate aim 

 the cessation of slavery in the "West Indies. Till then it 

 will be in vain to register the strokes of the whip, to diminish 

 the number that may be given at one time, to require the 

 presence of witnesses, and to appoint protectors of slaves; 

 all these regulations, dictated by the most benevolent inten- 

 tions, are easily eluded : the isolated position of the plan- 

 tations renders their execution impossible. They pre-suppose 

 a svstem of domestic inquisition incompatible with what is 

 understood in the colonies by the phrase " established 

 rights." The state of slavery cannot be altogether peaceably 

 ameliorated, except by the simultaneous action of the free 

 men (white men and coloured), residing in the West Indies; 

 by colonial assemblies and legislatures ; by the influence ot 



VOL. III. T 



