326 HISTORY OF THE [book. iv. 
been tortured into a charge of criminal neglect and 
improvident avarice against the planters of the West 
Indies, who are supposed from thence, to have no 
wish of making their slaves even as happy as their 
situation will admit, or of keeping up their num¬ 
bers by natural increase. How far these charges 
are founded, let the following testimony of a very 
competent .witness determine:— <f I he dispropor¬ 
tion in the number of male and female slaves ex¬ 
ported from Africa (says Mr. Barnes*) appears to 
me to be imputable to the three following causes: 
First, to the practice of polygamy which prevails 
throughout Africa. Secondly, to some of the very 
causes of slavery itself: Men are more apt to com¬ 
mit civil offences than women, and in all eases, 
where males and females are involved in the same 
calamity, the first cause still has its operation: the 
young females are kept for wives, and the males are 
sold for slaves. Thirdly, to the circumstance, that fe¬ 
males become unfit for the slave market at a much 
earlier period than the males. A woman, through 
child-bearing, may appear a very exceptionable 
slave at twenty-two, or twenty-three years of age, 
whereas, a healthy well-made man, will not be ob¬ 
jected to at four or five and thirty; consequently, 
if an equal number of males and females of like 
ages were offered for sale, a much greater proportion 
of the females would be rejected on that account 
only. With regard to the question, Whether the 
European traders prefer purchasing males rather 
* Report of the committee of council 1789. 
/ 
