“And what work do you exact from them?”

“Eight hours a day—­except in crop-time, and then we are very busy; so that they have plenty of leisure to look after their own interests if they choose.”

“Do they ever lay up much money?”

“Very often enough to purchase their freedom, if they wished it.”

“If they wished it!” replied Mr Berecroft with surprise.

“Yes; without explanation, that may appear strange to you, and still more strange, the fact, that freedom offered has often been refused.  A man who is a clever workman as a carpenter, or any other trade, will purchase his freedom if he can, because artisans can obtain very high wages here; but a slave who, if I may use the term, is only a common labourer, would hardly support himself, and lay by nothing for his old age.  They are aware of it.  I have offered emancipation to one or two who have grown old, and they have refused it, and now remain as heirlooms on the estate, provided with everything, and doing little or no work, if they please.  You saw that old man sweeping under the portico?  Well, he does that every day; and it is all he has done for these five years.  Now, if you please, we will go through the plantations, and visit the sugar-mills.”

They passed the slaves, who were at work hoeing between the canes; and certainly, if an estimate of their condition was to be taken by the noise and laughter with which they beguiled their labour, they were far from demanding pity.

“But, I must confess, that there is something in that cart-whip which I do not like,” observed Newton.

“I grant it; but custom is not easily broken through; nor do we know any substitute.  It is the badge of authority, and the noise of it is requisite to summon them to their labour.  With me it is seldom used, for it is not required; and if you were captain of a man-of-war, I should answer you as I did Captain C——­; to wit—­I question much whether my noisy whip is half so mischievous as your silent cat.”

The sugar-mills, stables of mules, boilers, coolers, &c., were all examined, and the party returned to the plantation-house.

“Well, captain, now you have witnessed what is termed slavery, what is your opinion?  Are your philanthropists justified in their invectives against us?”

“First assure me that all other plantations are as well regulated as your own,” replied Mr Berecroft.

“If not, they soon will be:  it is to the interest of all the planters that they should; and by that, like all the rest of the world, they will be guided.”

“But still there have been great acts of cruelty committed; quite enough to prepossess us against you as a body.”

“I grant that such has been the case, and may occasionally be so now; but do not the newspapers of England teem with acts of barbarity?  Men are the same everywhere.  But, sir, it is the misfortune of this world, that we never know when to stop.  The abolition of the slave-trade was an act of humanity, worthy of a country acting upon an extended scale like England; but your philanthropists, not content with relieving the blacks, look forward to the extermination of their own countrymen, the whites—­who, upon the faith and promise of the nation, were induced to embark their capital in these islands.”