24.4 
NEGRO MORTALITY. 
interval of tliree centuries, by reducing tliem to slavery f 
Much cannot be said in commendation of the treatment of 
the blacks in the southern ])arts of the United States • but 
there are degrees in the sulleriugs of the human species. 
Ihe slave who has a hut and a family’', is less miserable tlian 
he who is purchased, as if he formed part of a flock. The- 
greater tJie number of slaves established with their families 
in dwellings which they^ believe to bo their own property, 
the more rapidly will their numbers increase. 
annual increase of the last ten years in the United 
btates (without counting tlie manumission of 100,000), was 
twenty-six on a thousand, which produces a doubling in 
^enty-seven years. Now, if the slaves at Jamaica and 
Cuba had multiplied in the same proportion, those twu 
islands (the former since 1795, and the latter since 1800) 
would possess almost their present population, without 
400,000 blacks having been dragged from the coast of 
Africa, to Port-ltoyal and tlie Ilavannah. 
The mortality of the negroes is very different in the island 
c . ‘‘i West Indies, according to the nature- 
ot their treatment, the humanity of masters and overseers, 
and the number of iiegresses who can attend to the sick" 
There are plantations in which fifteen to eighteen per cent, 
perish annually. I have heard it coolly discussed, whether 
it were better for the proprietor not to subject the slaves to 
excessive labour, and consequently to replace tliem less fre- 
qiieiitly, or to draw all the advantage possible from them in 
a few years, and replace them oftner by the acquisition of 
bozal negroes. Such are the reasonings of cupidity, when 
man employs man as a beast of burden ! It would be unjust 
to entertain a doubt, tliat within fifteen years nefro mor- 
tality has greatly diminished in the island of Cuba.” Several 
proprietors have made laudable eflbrts to improve the plan- 
tation system. '■ 
It lias been remarked, bow much the population of the 
island of Cuba is susceptible of being augmented in the 
lapse of ages. As the native of a northern country, little 
favoured by nature, I may observe that the Mark of Bran- 
debourg, for the most part sandy, contains, under an adiiii- 
mstratioii favourable to the progress of agricultural iudustrv, 
on a surface only one-third of that of Cuba, a population 
