Indies, ought, I humbly conceive, to have made you doubly cautious of, and, indeed, entirely prevented your hazarding affertions, which, from your own Ccount, you was not well able to authenticate; at leaft, you fay, the facts you relate can be better authenticated by the perfons in London, to whom you refer your correfpondent. The judges of the courts of law require the beft poffible teftimony, before they give sentence; people arraigned before the tribunal of the public, have a right to the fame juftice. It would have been fo ne fatisfaction to us, if you had named your witneffes publicly: if you have done fo to Mr. Hoare and the Society, they have concealed them; but in fucla cafe, from the zeal which fome of those gentlemen have manifefted, it is not to be fufpected, but that they have strictly examined the perfons you have referred them to; as they are filent upon the refult of their enquiry, it is probable, thofe witneffes have not authenticated the ftories you have told; and, have we not a right, therefore, to fuppofe you have been mistaken, as we are deprived of these peoples teftimony? I beg leave to be permitted to examine your letter, and to make fome flight obfervations upon it; as, except what has been written in the newspapers, it is the only tra& I have seen upon the subject of this intended abolition of the Slave Trade. I am the more inclined to pay this attention to it, as the fociety to which it is addreffed, has fuppofed it to contain information which may be depended upon, for fo I conftrue their declaration, "that the publication of it may be of advantage to the cause of humanity." You fay, Sir, "if it can be proved that the natural increase of the negroes, in the islands, would be fully adequate to the cultivation of them, and that fuch natural increase would be fecured

by

by humane treatment, no argument could then be brought against the abolition of this accurfed traffick, but from the private intereft of a fe v individuals on this (the British) fide of the Atlantic, chiefly."

You acknowledge, Sir, that a number of facts are necessary to establish that position, and you state only one or two remarkable ones, which, you say, may be better authenticated by others than by yourself; but you do not, as I have obferved before, name them, nor the authors of the extraordinary tale efpecting the 75 negroes, out of 170, deftroyed by Mr. M'Mahon's severity in two years; nor, the more improbable one, of that man's boafting, that he did not defire a newly-purchased flave to live more than four years, in which time he could be fufficiently repaid for the purchafe."

An if, or mere fuppofition, will never be allowed as argument. I have no doubt to take upon me to convince every man, who will examine the fubject, that the natural increase of the negroes in the islands will not be adequate to their cultivation, at least for several generations; and, as the tale you have told is totally deftitute of evidence to fupport it, I hope you will not be offended with me, if I can no further confider the matter related, as a fact, than as it may appear confiftent with reason, or probability; and, if I find it contradict both, to reject it accordingly.

With refpect to the first point, I beg leave to observe, that the island of Jamaica is fuppofed to contain 3,500,000 acres, of which about 2,300,000 are accounted cultivable. It is reckoned, that an able negro

is.

is required for the cultivation of an acre of cane land, but I will fuppofe, that, reckoning one kind of culture with another, every able negro fhall cultivate three acres of the different kinds of produce in the island; 783.333 able negroes will then be neceffary to cultivate this island only. But the whole island, by the last recenfement, in the year 1788, contains no more than 257,300 flaves of all denominations; take from that number the perfons employed in commerce, fishing, as domestics, old, infirm, and children, and there will not remain more than one feventh part of what is neceffary for the cultivation of this island only. When is it to be imagined the natural increase of those now in the island will fupply this enormous deficiency?

Your fuppofing this natural increase will be fecured by humane treatment, implies a ftrong accufation that the negroes are inhumanly treated at prefent. Accufations ought, always, to be particular and precife: there is otherwife no poffibility of giving a full and positive anfwer to them. I flatter myself I have fhewn, in the foregoing pages, that the general charge of inhumanity against the planters, with refpect to their treatment of their flaves, is ill founded. I fhall now, Sir, examine into the particular charge againft Mr. M'Mahon, heretofore of Barbadoes, which, not having any evidence. to fupport it, depends entirely upon your affertion, and I doubt not to fhew, to a demonftration, that, however culpable Mr. M'Mahon's behaviour may have been, it is not poffible it fhould have been so to the extent you have reprefented it.

You, Sir, are the accufer; you speak of the facts as within your own knowledge:-" that Mr. M'Mahon

died

died upon his estate at Barbadoes, about 17 or 18 years ago; as well as you remember, the estate was worth about 30,000l. Barbadoes money;-that the late owner had been in poffeffion feven or eight years;-that finding himself encumbered with debt, to a merchant in London, he refolved to pay off this encumbrance by extraordinary exertions ;-in confequence of which he destroyed the health and lives of many of his negroes, (75 out of 170 in two years) he was therefore obliged to fupply their places with others, purchased from time to time, during the fpace of feven years, until at length, upon his own demife, his eftate was left precisely in the fame ftate he found it ;-the money lost by the death of his flaves, being found equal to the original debt upon the eftate."

Thus ftands the indictment against the memory of a gentleman, who, perhaps, may have left near relations, or friends, behind him, whose feelings may be feverely wounded by it, but who may have no means of defence, even should the ftory not be true. I fancy, upon examination, it will prove, like most other tales of the fame kind, to be the offspring of malice, credulity, or

error.

I will appeal to every gentleman, who knows any thing of the island of Barbadoes, whether about the period you mention,-that is about the year 1769 or 1770, and for several years before and after, the estates in that colony were not in fuch a manner over-run with the cane ant, black blaft, or other vermin, as to render them generally unproductive, fo that with every care a man could take, both of his negroes and stock, he could not, in the feven or eight years you mention, have

H

have at all reduced any debt he might owe, however extraordinary his exertions might have been; especially as, during the fame period, it had pleased the Almighty to withhold from them the usual periodical rains, without which all the planters care and industry will be of no avail; but if in two years Mr. M'Mahon reduced a gang of 170 negroes nearly one half, he would not have had 20 negroes of his original stock left alive at the end of the feventh year; which it must have cost him 7000l. fterling at least to replace, befides the lofs he must have sustained by the deaths of the new negroes, with which he had replaced them, many of whom, you fay, (page 8,)" when they arrive at the plantation of their purchafer, from the lofs of their liberty, their friends, and their country, pine to death; fome destroy themselves; few, if any, are capable of much labour until the fecond or third year." Thus, Sir, if the account you have given of Mr. M'Mahon's treatment of his negroes is true, fo far would his eftate have been from being left precifely in the fame state of encumbrance he found it, that he must have suffered at least to the amount of 10,000l. ferling from the lofs of flaves only, in addition to the first encumbrance, befides the intereft of the original debt, as it would have been abfolutely impoffible, in the general fituation of the island at that time, and the particular ftate of his negroes (for he could not have many of the remainder capable of any labour, much lefs of extraordinary exertions) that he should have made a crop more than fufficient to have purchased the working tools, casks, and other neceffary utenfils of his manufacture, and paid the wages of his overfeers, &c.

Thus,