284 HISTORY OF THE [book vi. 
their cultivation and returns), was the price at which 
Great Britain thought proper to retain her exclu¬ 
sive right of supplying her sugar islands with food 
and necessaries ! Common eharit) must compel us 
to believe (as I verily do believe) that this dreadful- 
proscription of so many thousand innocent people, 
the poor, unoffending negroes, was neither intended 
nor foreseen by those who recommended the mea¬ 
sures that produced it. Certainly no such proof was 
wanting to demonstrate, that the resentments of par¬ 
ty too frequently supersede the common feelings of 
our nature. It is indeed true, that the evil did at 
length in some measure furnish its own remedy: 
The inhabitants of Jamaica, by appropriating part 
of their lands and labour to the raising of provisions, 
and the hewing of staves, found some resource 
within themselves 3 and, happily for the other 
islands, the United States did not, as was appre¬ 
hended, adopt any scheme of retaliation 3 so that 
British vessels ultimately obtained the profits of the 
carriage (whatever it was) between the West In¬ 
dies and America 3 and thus at length the system 
became recognized and confirmed by the legisla¬ 
ture.* 
* Bv the 28'h Geo. III. c. 6. which took effect the 4th of April 
1788, it is enacted, “ That no goods or commodities whatever shall 
be imported or brought from any of the territories belonging to the 
United States of America, into any of his majesty’s West India islands 
(in which description the Bahama Islands, and the Bermuda, or So¬ 
mers Islands, are included) under the penalty of the forfeiture there¬ 
of, and also of the ship or vessel in which the same shall be imported 
er brought, together with all her guns, furniture, ammunition, tackle. 
