CiiAP. V.] 
WEST INDIES. 369 
§3* A valuable friend, than whpni no mart is better ac¬ 
quainted with the negro character, and the con¬ 
dition of the enslaved Africans, has favoured me 
with the following observations, which occurreq 
to him on a perusal of the preceding chapter in the 
first edition. 
u That the treatment of the negroes in the British West 
Indies, even before what has been lately done by the eolo* 
nial assemblies to meliorate their condition, was not syste¬ 
matically bad, is to me convincing from this fact, which all 
who are acquainted with negroes on plantations must ad¬ 
mit ; that the Creole race, (with some few eminent excep¬ 
tions), exceed the African in intellect, strength, and comeli¬ 
ness, in a very remarkable manner. If a better horse is 
produced from an inferior breed, it is fair to conclude, that 
the colt has had a better groom, and a better pasture, than 
the common on which the dam usually fed. The great ob¬ 
ject to be wished at present, as it appears to me, is, to purify 
the moral sense of negroes. Hitherto, with all their im¬ 
provements, they have caught from the whites, I am afraid, 
more of the vices than the virtues of civilization. Correct 
the idea, which a negro may be said to imbibe with his 
mother’s milk, that whatever he can cheat his owner of, 
in any direction, is clear gain to himself: Make the inte¬ 
rest of the master and the slave go hand in hand. Now I 
think that small wages, subject to stoppage for delinquen- 
Vol. II. 3 a 
