3 2 2 
HISTORY OF THE [book iy. 
consign thither annually, certain specific quantities 
of sugar and rum. The effect therefore of a direct 
and unqualified abolition would be this, that while 
the few persons who have money at command, 
would be waiting, and perhaps contriving, oppor¬ 
tunities to stock their plantations with the slaves 
of their distressed and harassed neighbours, the 
great majority of planters would find themselves in 
a most cruel and uncomfortable situation} their 
estates already weak-handed, deprived of the pos¬ 
sibility of selling their lands, and no means in their 
power of augmenting their stock of labourers by 
purchase} their creditors, at the same time, cla¬ 
mourous and importunate for produce, which can 
only be obtained by great exertions of labour: in 
such circumstances what are they to do? I cannot 
better illustrate this part of my subject, than by the 
case of the Dutch planters of Essequebo and De- 
marara: by an impolitic interdiction of foreign 
slave ships into those provinces, they have, for 
some time past, felt all the effects of a virtual abo¬ 
lition } and here follows the account which they give 
of their situation, transcribed from a late memori¬ 
al to the States General: It is impossible (say the 
petitioners) to inform your high mightinesses of the 
real annual diminution of our slaves, but It is ge¬ 
nerally calculated at five in the hundred, or a twen¬ 
tieth part. This is little felt the first year: nineteen 
remaining negroes hardly perceive that they do the 
work which the preceding year employed twenty. 
But the second year the same work falls to the 
share of eighteen, and, if another year passes with- 
