SLAVERY. 225 



account of the results of this unfortunate trade!" 

 I respect the sentiments that have dictated these 

 lines, and will again repeat, that if we compare 

 Cuba with Jamaica, the results appear in favor of 

 the Spanish legislation, and the customs of the inha- 

 bitants of Cuba. These comparisons demonstrate a 

 state of affairs in the latter island infinitely more 

 favorable to the physical preservation and manumis- 

 sion of the negroes ; but what a sorrowful spectacle 

 is presented by Christian and civilized nations dis- 

 puting which of the two, in three centuries, has 

 destroyed the least number of Africans, by reducing 

 them to slavery ! 



I will not praise the treatment of the negroes in 

 the southern portion of the United States, 1 but 

 certain it is, that different degrees exist in the 

 sufferings of the human species. The slave who has 

 a cabin and a family, is not so unhappy as he who is 

 folded as if he were one of a flock of sheep. The 

 greater the number of slaves established with their 



*See "Negro slavery in the United States of America and 

 Jamaica," 1823, p. 31, as to the comparative state of misery 

 between the slaves of the Antilles, and those of the United States. 

 In 1823 Jamaica had 170,466 males, and 171,916 females; the 

 United States, in 1820, had 788,020 males, and 750,100 females. It 

 is not, therefore, the disproportion between the sexes that causes the 

 absence of natural increase in the Antilles. — H. 



10* 



