We know that in the middle ages it was not uncommon for poor men of free condition voluntarily to become vassals, that, in an age in which person and property were very imperfectly secure, they might obtain a master’s protection; but the vassalage of the middle ages was not the slavery of the West Indies. In spite of all the evils therefore and degradation, incident to the state of Blacks who have no owner to protect them from injuries and insults, there never yet was, surely there never will be, an instance of an emancipated Negro returning to resume the yoke of slavery, notwithstanding all the security and all the comforts which we are assured this situation carries in its train. May not also the state and circumstances of this class account for the numerous defects and vices which are laid to their charge? Their indolence is particularly noticed, and their never engaging in field-work is mentioned as discreditable to them: but can we wonder that none will subject themselves to the driver’s lash, who are not absolutely forced to submit to such a degradation.[40]
On the whole, therefore, notwithstanding the favourable representation made of the condition and treatment of the negro Slaves by persons of high rank and acknowledged respectability; if you will seriously weigh the amount of the various vices of the West Indian system which have been here enumerated, you will be ready almost with certainty to conclude; that, under circumstances so extremely unfavourable to the multiplication of our species, the West Indian Slaves must annually and rapidly decrease in number. [Sidenote: First Proposition proved.] This, it will be remembered, was the first of the three propositions which I undertook to prove on the question concerning the keeping up of the Black population without importations from Africa.
The second proposition was, that notwithstanding all the grievous abuses of the West Indian system, the decrease of the Slaves was on the whole very inconsiderable, if there were any decrease at all.
When the Slave Trade became first the subject of public discussion, His Majesty’s ministers sent to the legislative and executive bodies of the different West Indian Islands, a number of queries, the answers to which contained a vast body of information on the various particulars of the colonial system. A great addition was made to this stock of information, by examining various persons of intelligence and experience in West Indian affairs. The whole was compiled into one bulky Report, and laid before both Houses of Parliament.
