his income. He can save but little of his salary; and his employer can hardly afford to enhance it, from the heavy burthens which lie upon himself. But this resource in a great measure ceasing with the importation of slaves from Africa, his views will be diminished, if not annihilated: he will rarely meet with slaves to purchase; and these of course will be at so enormously increased a value, as to make the purchase of them incompatible with his finances.

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CHAPTER XIX.

Prejudices against the West India planter.Former condition and treatment of the slaves. -Present ameliorated condition and treatment.-Routine of their work.-Their dwell ings, food, clothing, &c.

IT is a common received opinion, that the slaves on the estates are treated with an unjustifiable harshness and severity. However this supposition might have been too well founded in former times, it certainly is not so correct a one now. In general they are treated with every proper lenity, and with the greatest degree of attention to their wants and comforts. It is in a marked' degree the interest of their masters to treat them with this gentleness, and be thus attentive to their comforts. Without his slaves (and they are now become additionally valuable) the land of a West India proprietor is nothing better to him than a useless waste. Self love will therefore, independent of humanity, operate to prodúce all its purposes. But it would be ungenerous and unjust to assume, that humanity was a principle extinguished in the breast of a West India planter. In spite of the odium under which this class of people too generally lie, there are

among them many worthy, respectable, and benevolent characters. The prejudices against them often originate in the misrepresentations of the ignorant, the exaggerations of the malicious, or the credulity of those who seek for no other evidence than the boldness of unqualified assertion. There may be, there doubtless are, solitary exceptions; and it is such exceptions which create a belief that a system of cruelty universally prevails. This is not an unusual mode of inference, though certainly a most illiberal one. As well might a stranger infer, from witnessing crime in a country he visited, that the people were all ruffians. That there are still such men as cruel masters, and violent and merciless, overseers, in this country, it would be folly to deny; but that such characters are rare, will naturally be concluded from what has before been said; it seldom happens, that either the one escapes long from reprobation, and even punishment, where his conduct comes within the cognizance of the law, or that the other ever succeeds in his profession. In former times, the condition and treatment of the poor negro was truly deplorable; particularly when he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a barbarous master or manager. He might torture him in various ways, he might wound, maim, or even kill him, and all the punishment he was liable to for this savage exercise of authority, was the pay-" ment of a pecuniary fine! The author has heard

of one wretch who used to set his dogs upon those of his negroes who displeased him, and feast his eyes with the spectacle of the animals worrying them: and of another, who, when his negroes became useless by age or disease, ordered them to be precipitated into the cavern of a rock! This man was an incredible monster of inhumanity, and was so notorious throughout the island, that there is still a general song among the negroes relative to him, the burthen of which is a poor negro, while he is dragging to this horrible fate, exclaiming, "Massa me no dead yet!" It is said that one of those poor wretches escaped by miracle from this dungeon of death, not having been materially hurt by the fall, and afterwards recovered; but that evil mischance bringing him one day in the way of his diabolical master, hé claimed him; though the unhappy negro justly pleaded that he had now no further title to him, as he had "thrown him away." To recount the instances of savage barbarity that were too com. mon in former times, would only be shocking the feelings of the reader. Be it however remarked, that the names of both the above-mentioned monsters still continue to be mentioned with horror and execration by all ranks of people in the island. In the time of these men, it was not an unusual thing, when a negro ran away, to pay so much to a Maroon to produce him dead or alive; that is, under the pretence that the fugitive had made resistance, the Ma

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roon killed him, and cut off his head, which he brought in his wallet to the master, who had it set up in some conspicuous part, as an example, in terrorem, to the rest of his slaves!

But these horrible times are now past, and the negro slave is as completely protected against violence and murder, as the white man. Within these late years, one or two white men have been executed in Jamaica for the murder of their own negroes; and one infatuated man, of opulent fortune and respectable family, was lately obliged to fly to a foreign country, in order to avoid a likę fate, for having, in a fit of passion and inebriety, killed his negro servant. There is a complete code of laws, called the consolidated slave law, now existing in this island, chiefly for the protection of the slaves. A white man, who beats and abuses a negro, is equally liable to be prosecuted and punished, either by a magistrate, or the owner of the slave, as if he thus treated a white man like himself. The evidence of a slave is, however, not admissible against a white man: it is conceived, that such admission would open a door to much perjury and abuse of this prerogative; for the slaves, who do not consider it as any great sin or shame to tell the grossest falsehoods, would, also, not scruple to confirm such falsehood with the solemnity of an oath ; they have no other opinion of "Buckra swear,' as they call the oath of the white people, than