whatsoever can merit such severe punishments, unless I except the crimes of those who devise and inflict them.  Sir Hans Sloane, indeed, mentions rebellion as the principal crime; and certainly it is very justly esteemed a most heinous crime, in a land of liberty, where government is limited by equitable and just laws, if the same are tolerably well observed; but in countries where arbitrary power is exercised with such intolerable cruelty as is before described, if resistance be a crime, it is certainly the most natural of all others.

But the 19th clause of the 38th act, would indeed, on a slight perusal, induce us to conceive, that the punishment for rebellion is not so severe as it is represented by Sir Hans Sloane; because a slave, though deemed rebellious, is thereby condemned to no greater punishment than transportation.  Nevertheless, if the clause be thoroughly considered, we shall find no reason to commend the mercy of the legislature; for it only proves, that the Jamaica law-makers will not scruple to charge the slightest and most natural offences with the most opprobrious epithets; and that a poor slave, who perhaps has no otherwise incurred his master’s displeasure than by endeavouring (upon the just and warrantable principles of self-preservation,) to escape from his master’s tyranny, without any criminal intention whatsoever, is liable to be deemed rebellious, and to be arraigned as a capital offender.  “For every slave and slaves that shall run away, and continue but for the space of twelve months, except such slave or slaves as shall not have been three years in this island, shall be deemed rebellious,” &c. (see act 38, clause 19. p. 60.) Thus we are enabled to define what a West Indian tyrant means by the word rebellious.  But unjust as this clause may seem, yet it is abundantly more merciful and considerate than a subsequent act against the same poor miserable people, because the former assigns no other punishment for persons so deemed rebellious, than that they, “Shall be transported by order of two justices and three freeholders,” &c. whereas the latter spares not the blood of these poor injured fugitives:  For by the 66th act, a reward of 50 pounds is offered to those who “shall kill or bring in alive any rebellious slaves,” that is, any of these unfortunate people whom the law has “deemed rebellious,” as above; and this premium is not only tendered to commissioned parties (see 2d. clause) but even to any private “hunter, slave, or other person,” (see 3d. clause.) Thus it is manifest, that the law treats these poor unhappy men with as little ceremony and consideration as if they were merely wild beasts.  But the innocent blood that is shed in consequence of such a detestable law, must certainly call for vengeance on the murderous abettors and actors of such deliberate wickedness:  And though many of the guilty wretches should even be so hardened and abandoned as never afterwards to