CHAP. IV.] WEST INDIES. 1 9 j 
great success, there not being at present more 
than two hundred acres applied in this line of 
culture. 
The number of white people of all ages in Ber¬ 
mudas is live thousand four hundred and sixty-two; 
of blacks four thousand nine hundred and nine¬ 
teen.* 
Thus it appears, that the lands become less fertile 
as we recede from the tropicks, and were there not, 
as there certainly is, an unaccountable propensity 
in the greater part of mankind, to under-rate what 
they have in actual possession, it would require but 
'* It were an act of great injustice to the inhabitants of Bermudas, 
to omit the very honourable testimony which governor Brown has 
transmitted to government, concerning the treatment of their negro 
slaves. “ Nothing (he observes) can better shew the state of slavery 
in Bermudas than the behaviour of the blacks in the late war. There 
were at one time between fifteen and twenty privateers fitted out from 
hence, which were partly manned by negro slaves, who behaved both 
as sailors and marines irreproachably; and whenever they were cap¬ 
tured, always returned, if it was in their power. There were seve¬ 
ral instances wherein they had been condemned with the vessel and 
sold, and afterwards found means to escape, and through many dif¬ 
ficulties and hardships returned to their master’s service. In the ship 
Regulator, a privateer, there were seventy slaves. She was taken and 
carried into Boston. Sixty of them returned in a flag of truce di¬ 
rectly to Bermudas. Nine others returned by the way of New-York. 
One only was missing, who di^I in the cruize, or in captivity.” 
Report of the Privy Council on the 
Slave Trade, Part III. 
