IMPOLICY OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 



309 



ure not under his control, he will more wil- 

 lingly stay idling at home, or accept an invi- 

 tation to a merriment-making. Labour is not 

 pleasant ; men in general work from necessity, 

 and therefore some stimulant is requisite to urge 

 them to exertion : this occurs in any climate, 

 and holds good still more frequently in one 

 which naturally inclines to the indulgence of in- 

 dolent propensities. * 



If all men were free, the capital which is re- 

 quired in the establishment of a plantation, or 

 the great exertions which, under existing cir- 

 cumstances, must be used to answer the pay- 

 ments which are to be made for the property 

 obtained on credit, would not be so necessary ; 

 or, at any rate, the experiment of entering into 

 schemes for planting would not be so danger- 

 ous as it is at present, if the chief expenditure 

 was not incurred in property which is so pre- 

 carious, and at the same time so valuable, as 

 slaves. In the purchase of any other description 

 of live-stock (to speak in Creole language), the 

 risk lies in diseases of the body only, and in 

 those alone to which bodies that are inured to 

 the climate are subject ; but you transplant 

 the negro from his native soil, which to him is 

 the best in the world ; and you have his wounded 



* I am aware that this is not the case with all nations ; but 

 although it may not be correct when speaking generally, its 

 application to the people of whom I am treating will nut, 1 

 think, be found to be erroneous. 



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