SPAUISH SLATE LAWS. 
281 
excesses tlie slave is exposed in the solitude of a planta- 
tion or a farm, where a rude capataz, armed with a cutlass 
(machete) and a whip, exercises absolute authority %vith impu- 
nity ! The law neither limits the iiunishmeiit of the slave, 
nor the duration of labour ; nor does it prescribe the quality 
and quantity of his food.* It permits the slave, it is true, 
to have recourse to a magistrate, in order that he may enjoin 
the master to be more equitable; but this recourse is nearly 
illusory ; for there exists another law, according to which 
every slave may be arrested and sent back to his master 
who is found without permission at the distance ot a league 
and a half from the plantation to which lie belongs. How 
eau a slave, whipped, exhausted by hunger, and excess of 
labour, find means to appear before the magistrate ? mid if 
he did reach him, how would he be defended against a 
powerful master, who calls the hired accomplices of his 
eruelties, as witnesses.” 
In conclusion I may quote a very remarkable extract from 
the Tieprexr.iiladon del Aiiuntamiento, Constdiiilo, y Idaciedad 
pntriotica, dated July 20th, 1811. “In all that relates to 
the changes to be introduced in the captive, class, thei-e is 
much le.ss question of our fears on the diminution of agri- 
cultural woaltii, than of the security of the whites, so easy 
to be compromised by imprudent measures. Besides, those 
who accuse the consulate and the municipality ot the llavan- 
nah of obstinate resistance, forget that, in the year 1799, 
the same authorities proposed fruitlessly, that the govern- 
ment would divert attention to the state of the blacks in the 
the island of Cuba (del arreglo de este delicado asunto.) 
Turther, we are far from adopting the maxims which the 
“Whereas some persons have op late been guilty of cutting off and 
ticpi'iving slaves of Llieir ears, we order that whoever shall extirpate an 
^ye. tear oiu the tongue, or cut off the nose of a slave, shall pay five hun- 
dred pounds sterling, and he condemned to six months imprisonment. 
U is unnecessary to add, that these ihiglish laws, wliich were in force 
thirty or forty years ago, are nholished and superseded by laws more 
humane. t\’hy can I not say as much of the legislation of the French 
islands, where six young slaves, suspected of an intention to escape, were 
condemned, by a sentence pronounced in 1815, to have their hamstrings 
cut! 
* A royal ecdulu, of May 1789, had attempted to regulate tbs 
food and clothing ; but that ceduia was ne'^er executed. 
