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230 



SLAVERY. 



that their lives may be rendered less irksome. 

 The time which is thus afforded enables the 

 slave, who is so inclined, to accumulate a sum 

 of money ; however this is by law his master's 

 property, from the incapability under which a 

 slave labours of possessing any thing which he 

 can by right call his own. But I believe there 

 is no instance on record in which a master at- 

 tempted to deprive his slave of these hard-earned 

 gains. The slave can oblige his master to 

 manumit him, on tendering to him the sum for 

 which he was first purchased, or the price for 

 which he might be sold, if that price is higher 

 than what the slave was worth at the time he 

 was first bought. * This regulation, like every 



* In the island of Grenada" " every manumission is, by an 

 act of the island, charged with a fine of one hundred pounds 

 currency ;" it is said that this law has neither operated as a 

 productive fund nor as a prohibition. — Edwards' History of 

 the West-Indies, vol. i. p. 380. 



At Surinam, says another writer, " 5/ un maitre voulait 

 affranchir son esclave, outre la parte quit Jesuit de son negre, 

 il itoit encore oblige d'ucheterjbrt cherdes lettres de Jranchise, 

 sans lesnicellps aucun noir ne pnuvoit Are instruit dans la 

 religion Chreticnne, ni baptise." — Voyage a la Guiane et a. 

 Cayenne en 1789, et annees suivantes. p. 224<. 



Bolingbroke says, " It is by no means an uncommon thing 

 in these colonies for negroes when they have accumulated a 

 sufficiency, to purchase their freedom ; and I have known 

 many instances of negroes who paid their owners a propor- 

 tion of the purchase-money, and were allowed after eman- 

 cipation to work out the balance." — Voyage to the Dcmc- 

 rary, &c. p. 65. 



