chap, v.] WEST INDIES. 334 
What has hitherto been observed concerning the 
disposal of Africans newly imported, is, I believe, 
applicable to West India estates of all descriptions; 
but, as my own personal attention has been chiefly 
directed to sugar plantations) I would be under¬ 
stood to speak of those more particularly; and I 
shall now proceed to describe the methodical ar¬ 
rangement and distribution of the labour with 
which they are conducted, as it is unquestionably 
more severe and constant than that on any other 
species of landed property in the West Indies. 
The negroes are divided into three sets or class¬ 
es, usually called gangs; the first consisting of 
the most healthy and robust of the men and wo¬ 
men, whose chief business it is, out of crop time, 
to clear, hole, and plant the ground; and, in crop 
time, to cut the canes, feed the mills, and attend 
the manufacture of the sugar. It is computed that, 
in the whole body of the negroes on a well condi¬ 
tioned plantation, there are commonly found one- 
third of this description, exclusive of domestics 
and negro tradesmen, viz. carpenters, coopers and 
masons, with which each well regulated plantation 
is provided.* The second gang is composed of 
* The annual profit arising to the owner, from the labour of each 
able field negro employed in the cultivation of sugar, may be reckoned 
at twenty-five pounds sterling money. I reckon thusA sugar 
plantation, well conducted, and in a favourable soil, ought to yield 
as many hogsheads of sugar, of 16 cwt. annually, as there are ne¬ 
groes belonging to it, the average value of which, for ten years past, 
may be stated at £,15 sterling the hogshead, but as every plantation 
