36o 



NARRATIVE OF AN 



CHAP. By this it appears, that no more than 20,000, or only- 



one- fourth of the whole number, are condemned to do 

 all the labour of the fields, on whom it may be faid 

 chiefly falls the dreadful lot of untimely mortality that 

 1 have formerly mentioned. Now it is evident, that if 

 the 50,000 able-bodied flaves that are in the colony of 

 Surinam were put to equal drudgery, the mortality, which 

 is now at the rate of five per cent, would then increafe to 

 at leaft the number of twelve out of every hundred, and 

 would compleatly extirpate the whole mafs in little more 

 than eight years time. 



Having thus at an average demonflrated how they are 

 diflributed, I mufl briefly obferve, that while full 30,000 

 live better than the common people of England, and near 

 30,000 are kept in idlenefs, and do no work in the fields ; 

 the remaining 20,000 may be clafTed (that is in general) 

 among the mofl miferable wretches on earth ; and are 

 worked, flarved, infulted, and flogged to death, without 

 being fo much as allowed to complain for redrefs, with- 

 out being heard in their own defence, without receiving 

 common juftice on any occafion, and thus may be con- 

 iidered as dead-alive, fince cut off from all the common 

 privileges of human fociety. , 



I will now proceed, by candidly afking the world. If the 

 above is not an improper and fenfelefs mifapplication, not 

 only of wealth, but of human life and labour ; which, 

 only by a proper diftribution and management, might 

 accumulate the one and relieve the other ? 



Now 



