V 



104 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



the good treatment they receive here, from the arbitrary and 

 unrelenting mandates of the petty kings and princes in their 

 own country, where they are subject to be butchered like a par- 

 cel of swine. Better, sure, are the Africans under the West 

 India planters, protected as they are by the colonial laws, 

 transplanted into a settlement, where their industry and talents 

 will make them useful members of the community, than 

 abandoned to the cruel and rude tyranny of an uncivilized 

 master in their own country. The severe methods of coer- 

 cion, formerly used by the West Indian planters, are tra- 

 ditional among the Africans, and resulted from employing 

 negro task-masters. In proportion as white overseers have be- 

 come numerous, has the treatment improved. During my 

 residence in Demerary, I made it a regular question of en- 

 quiry among plantation-negroes, whom I was constantly in the 

 habit of seeing and conversing with at remote places, as my 

 chief occupation consisted in travelling, whether they pre- 

 ferred their own country to this; and I hereby make a solemn 

 asseveration, which will remain upon record, that of several 

 hundreds of negroes, to whom I have put the question at dif- 

 ferent periods, they have all given the preference to their pre- 

 sent situations. I will venture to assert, that, in case of asking 

 all the negroes round in the colonies, there will be found 

 ninety contents out of every hundred to whom the question 

 should be put. 



