829 



suits furnished by the enumerating* or register- 

 ing" of the slaves (Slave Registry Returns), af- 

 ford only limit-numbers, the minima of particu- 

 lar periods. The proprietors have an interest 

 in concealing a part of the slaves they possess ; 

 the effects of emancipation f are confounded on 

 the registers with those of decease ; and on the 

 other hand a part of the births is hidden. The 

 registers in general tend to prove, that hitherto 

 (from 1817 to 1824) the black population de- 

 creases in the English colonies of the West 

 Indies, and much more in the small islands than 

 at Jamaica, and wherever the planters work 

 with considerable capitals a soil producing ali- 

 mentary subsistence in abundance. The official 

 registers give for twelve English West India 

 islands, in 1817, 617,799 slaves; for 1822, 

 604,444 slaves ; from whence results a loss of 

 1-4 6th in three years. At Jamaica alone it was 

 only 1 -257th ; and in the small islands it fluc- 

 tuates from 1-1 2th to l-60th. I do not give 

 these statements as true, but as resulting from 

 the registers. The distinction of whites, and 

 free coloured population, presents such great 

 difficulties, that at the end of the year 1823, 



* Adam Hodgson, Letter to M. Say, 1823, p. 37. De- 

 bate of the \5th May, 1823, p. 184. Bridges on Manumis- 

 sion and Negro Slavery of the United States and Jamaica^ 

 1823, pp. 51 and 85. 



