[Jan. 1, 
0?i the Present State of Negro Slavery, 
550 
nihil. 1 saw the negro denied the rank of 
a. moral agent, degraded, despised, pu¬ 
nished with caprice and cruelty, and 
wholly at the niercv of the authors of his 
degradation. This is the root of the 
evil, and the tree will continue to grow, 
extending its baleful shade, and shedding 
death and desolution around, until they 
w bo have power to apply the axe, the su¬ 
perior class of plantation-proprietors, put 
^fth their strength and bid it fall. 
To those who are familiar with the dis¬ 
cussions which happily led to the abo¬ 
lition of the slave-trade, it may be proper, 
in this place, to say a few words on the 
subject of decrease. It appears^ from the 
parliamentary debates on the abolition, 
that documents furnished by the islands 
proved the births and deaths among the 
creole negroes to be nearly equal. With¬ 
out presuming to question the correctness 
of these documents, or of the calculations 
founded on them, I may state the result 
of my own observations and enquiries, 
made more recently, in different parts of 
Jamaica. On a few plantations the 
negroes have increased, either from the 
presence of the proprietor or some other 
favourable circumstance connected with 
their treatment, capable of counteract¬ 
ing, in some measure, the evils insepa¬ 
rable from the prevailing system of su¬ 
perintendence. Tliese instances, how¬ 
ever, are very rare, insomuch as to be 
considered extraordinary. In general 
there is no increase, and on very many 
plantations there is a great decrease, far 
exceeding the increase on a few ; and 
this excess appears to be still gaining 
preponderance. That the seasoning of 
imported negroes swelled the decrease- 
})st is as certain as that the importation 
itself profluced the alleged necessity for 
its perpetuation : but, that a greater num¬ 
ber than is generally supposed of creole 
negroes die oidirt'Cating, and other dis¬ 
eases, the effects of injurious treatment, 
and that they are in general decreasing, 
J have the firmest conviction.* W'ere it 
* In connection with this very iuterestinS 
subject, many important facts might be de¬ 
tailed; but, at present, I shall only state that 
, che children born are not entered in the plan- 
tatioB-books unless they survive the ninth 
dayj and,as a great proportion die before that 
period of locked-jaw, (a disease neither ne¬ 
cessary nor irremediable, although, on the 
plantations, it is like dirt-eatings unhappily 
SO held) their proprietors residing in this 
country are not aware of the loss they suffer 
yearly from infanticide, for, in Strict justice, 
H -i;:csve5 that appeiUtion. 
even admitted that, at present,“the birfli 
and deaths among the creole negroes are 
equal,’^ when it is considered that, of the 
effective strength of the island, the Afri¬ 
cans imported during the last years of 
the trade form a very considerable part, 
and that, in proportion as the whole stock 
of a plantation diminishes, the toil and 
distress of the survivors (under the exist, 
ing system) increase ; it is apparent that 
nothing but a speedy and radical reform 
of the system of management can arrest 
the progress of depopulation and ruin. 
respect to “ the abolition of 
slavery in the islands,'’ which yoUr cor¬ 
respondent seems to think should have 
accomoanied the abolition of the African 
tratfic, “ the right’' of the mother-coun¬ 
try to interfere witli the government of 
her colonies for the common good, is, I 
conceive, unquestionable. But it is by 
no means obvious that the emancipation 
of the plantation-slaves in their present 
state of barbarism (which they owe solely 
to the slave-trade and its offspring the 
driving-system) would be for their good* 
Would a skilful rider throw the reins 
upon the neck of an ill-trained horse, 
rendered vicious by mal-treatn.ent, and 
commit to uncontrolled fury the safety 
of both, perhaps surrounded by pitfals 
and precipices.'* No—he would keep a 
steady rein, and tighten or relax it as 
circumstances might require: neither 
would he allow an ignorant and pas¬ 
sionate groom to abuse the horse for bad 
qualities, created perhaps by his own ill 
temper, and remediable only by a better 
system of tnanagement. I trust the can¬ 
dour of your correspondent will acquit 
me ol any design to favour the few at tire 
expence ot tlie many: their interests are 
inseparable, and the conviction in my 
mind that I exist is not more firm than 
that the degradation of the plantation- 
slave is the destruction of the planter. 
Neither do I, in the spirit of the histo¬ 
rian of the plantations, seek to film over 
with sophistry and falsehood the ulcerous 
and deadly wounds of a rotten system of 
society; nor, like certain of our politici¬ 
ans, pious and prudent men, prefer a mo¬ 
de; ate to a radical reform.* 
Where 
Vide Clarkson’s History of the Abo¬ 
lition, &:c.” vol. ii. p. 398, for an exposition 
of^ those moderate means of terminating the 
slave-trade, which called forth that effusion, 
never'to be fotgotten, of indignant and more 
than Demosthejiran eloquence from the 
manly mind oJ Mr. Fox, whose z-erlun ard<-'^s 
could maice corropt'on quui, vnd stri.kewich 
tsrro- 
