the author) we can boast of no such blessing; we have at least ten slaves to one freeman.  I incline to touch the hardships which these poor creatures suffer, in the tenderest manner, from a particular regard which I have to many of their masters, but I cannot conceal their sad circumstances intirely:  the most trivial error is punished with terrible whipping.  I have seen some of them treated in that cruel manner, for no other reason but to satisfy the brutish pleasure of an overseer, who has their punishment mostly at his discretion.  I have seen their bodies all in a gore of blood, the skin torn off their backs with the cruel whip; beaten pepper and salt rubbed in the wounds, and a large stick of sealing wax dropped leisurely upon them.  It is no wonder, if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures incline them to rebel.  Most of these slaves are brought from the coast of Guinea.  When they first arrive, it is observed, they are simple and very innocent creatures; but soon turn to be roguish enough.  And when they come to be whipt, urge the example of the whites for an excuse of their faults.”

These accounts of the deep depravity of mind attendant on the practice of slavery, verify the truth of Montesquieu’s remark of its pernicious effects.  And altho’ the same degree of opposition to instructing the Negroes may not now appear in the islands as formerly, especially since the Society appointed for propagating the Gospel have possessed a number of Negroes in one of them; nevertheless the situation of these oppressed people is yet dreadful, as well to themselves as in its consequence to their hard task-masters, and their offspring, as must be evident to every impartial person who is acquainted with the treatment they generally receive, or with the laws which from time to time have been made in the colonies, with respect to the Negroes; some of them being absolutely inconsistent with reason, and shocking to humanity.  By the 329th act of the assembly of Barbadoes, page 125, it is enacted,

“That if any Negroe or other slave under punishment by his master, or his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanors towards his said master, unfortunately shall suffer in life or member, (which seldom happens) no person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine therefore.  But if any man shall, of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness or cruel intention, wilfully kill a Negroe, or other slave of his own, he shall pay into the public treasury, fifteen pounds sterling.”  Now that the life of a man should be so lightly valued, as that fifteen pounds should be judged a sufficient indemnification of the murder of one, even when it is avowedly done wilfully, wantonly, cruelly, or of bloody-mindedness, is a tyranny hardly to be paralleled:  nevertheless human laws cannot make void the righteous law of God, or prevent the inquisition of that awful judgment day, when, “at the hand of every man’s brother the life of man shall be required.”