The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign | Page 3

fellow-men would require that we should follow in the same direction, at whatever loss or inconvenience to ourselves. Should it, however, prove that the condition of the poor negro has been impaired and not improved, it will then become proper to enquire what have been in past times the circumstances under which men have become more free, with a view to ascertain wherein lies the deficiency, and why it is that freedom now so obviously declines in various and important portions of the earth. These things ascertained, it may be that there will be little difficulty in determining what are the measures now needed for enabling all men, black, white, and brown, to obtain for themselves, and profitably to all, the exercise of the rights of freemen. To adopt this course will be to follow in that of the skilful physician, who always determines within himself the cause of fever before he prescribes the remedy.

CHAPTER II.
OF SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH COLONIES.
At the date of the surrender of Jamaica to the British arms, in 1655, the slaves, who were few in number, generally escaped to the mountains, whence they kept up a war of depredation, until at length an accommodation was effected in 1734, the terms of which were not, however, complied with by the whites--the consequences of which will be shown hereafter. Throughout the whole period their numbers were kept up by the desertion of other slaves, and to this cause must, no doubt, be attributed much of the bitterness with which the subsequent war was waged.
In 1658, the slave population of the island was 1400. By 1670 it had reached 8000, and in 1673, 9504.[1] From that date we have no account until 1734, when it was 86,546, giving an increase in sixty-one years of 77,000. It was in 1673 that the sugar-culture was commenced; and as profitable employment was thus found for labour, there can be little doubt that the number had increased regularly and steadily, and that the following estimate must approach tolerably near the truth:--
Say 1702, 36,000; increase in 29 years, 26,500 1734, 77,000; " " 32 " 41,000
In 1775, the total number of slaves and other coloured persons on the island, was................. 194,614 And if we now deduct from this the number in 1702, say........................................ 36,000 ------- We obtain, as the increase of 73 years............ 158,614 =======
In that period the importations amounted to......... 497,736 And the exportations to............................. 137,114 ------- Leaving, as retained in the island................ 360,622 [2]
or about two and two-fifths persons for one that then remained alive.
From 1783 to 1787, the number imported was 47,485, and the number exported 14,541;[3] showing an increase in five years of nearly 33,000, or 6,600 per annum; and by a report of the Inspector-General, it was shown that the number retained from 1778 to 1787, averaged 5345 per annum. Taking the thirteen years, 1775-1787, at that rate, we obtain nearly ........... 70,000
From 1789 to 1791, the excess of import was 32,289, or 10,763 per annum; and if we take the four years, 1788-1791, at the same rate, we obtain, as the total number retained in that period................. 43,000 ------- 113,000 =======
In 1791, a committee of the House of Assembly made a report on the number of the slaves, by which it was made to be 250,000; and if to this be added the free negroes, amounting to 10,000, we obtain, as the total number, 260,000,--showing an increase, in fifteen years, of 65,386--or nearly 48,000 less than the number that had been imported.
We have now ascertained an import, in 89 years, of 473,000, with an increase of numbers amounting to only 224,000; thus establishing the fact that more than half of the whole import had perished under the treatment to which they had been subjected. Why it had been so may be gathered from the following extract, by which it is shown that the system there and then pursued corresponds nearly with that of Cuba at the present time.
"The advocates of the slave trade insisted that it was impossible to keep up the stock of negroes, without continual importations from Africa. It is, indeed, very evident, that as long as importation is continued, and two-thirds of the slaves imported are men, the succeeding generation, in the most favourable circumstances, cannot be more numerous than if there had been only half as many men; or, in other words, at least half the men may be said, with respect to population, to die without posterity."--Macpherson, vol. iv. 148.
In 1792, a committee of the Jamaica House of Assembly reported that "the abolition of the slave trade" must be followed by the "total ruin and depopulation of the island." "Suppose," said they,
"A planter settling with a gang of 100 African slaves, all bought in the prime of life. Out of this gang