But as time will not allow me to prove the point completely, let me abstain from an imperfect enumeration of arguments, and satisfy myself with affirming, that I am fully warranted by the very respectable authority just now alluded to, in placing insufficient feeding among the general vices of the West Indian system; though in Jamaica, and in some of the other islands, the lands allotted to the Slaves for raising their food is sufficient, had they but time enough for working it.[22] I will only remark farther, that in America, where the Slaves increase so rapidly, the quantity of food allowed to the Negroes was vastly greater than the largest West Indian allowance.
[Sidenote: Defects in point of clothing and lodging.]
Clothing and lodging are, in the West Indian climate, less important particulars; yet in them too there is room for improvement, as there is also in the point of medical care. [Sidenote: Overworking.] Overworking is a still more important hindrance, in which perhaps the excess in the continuance of the labour, is more injurious than in its intensity. And here I might call in Mr. Long as a witness, from whose experience on this head there ought to be no appeal. The passage is well worthy of attention: “I will not deny that those Negroes breed the best, whose labour is least, or easiest. Thus the domestic Negroes have more children than those on penns, and the latter than those who are employed on sugar plantations. If the number of hogsheads, annually made from any estate, exceeds, or even equals, the whole aggregate of Negroes employed upon it, but few children will be brought up on such estate, whatever number may be born. But, where the proportion of the annual produce is about half a hogshead for every Negro, there they will, in all likelihood, increase very rapidly; and not much less so, where the _ratio_ is of two hogsheads to every three Negroes, which I take to be a good _mesne_ proportion.” Does it not then indisputably follow, that where the Slaves diminish, it is owing to the labour being disproportionate to their strength?
[Sidenote: Moral defects of the West Indian system.]
But of all the vices of the West Indian system which tend to prevent the increase, those which may be termed the moral vices and preventives, are those on which I must insist most strongly, and on which also I must dwell more particularly, because even by benevolent and liberal minds they have been too generally neglected. These are of all others the most efficient; since, in their consequences, they naturally produce the existence, or at least the aggravation of all the rest. Of these let me first specify the practice of polygamy, and much more the almost universal dissoluteness and debauchery of the Negro Slaves. These are evils which have been almost always assigned by the West Indian gentlemen themselves, as the grand obstacle to the production and rearing of children. And yet, strange as it may seem, no attempts whatever appear to have been made, excepting by three or four enlightened and liberal proprietors, to reform these abuses. Can a more decisive proof be afforded, either that the increase of the Negroes was never any serious object of general attention, or that the prejudices and passions of men often make them act contrary to their clear and known interest? [Sidenote: Neglect of religious instruction.] No efforts have been made for the religious instruction and moral improvement of the Negroes, and any plans of that kind, when adopted by others, have been considered as chimerical, if not dangerous. This is the more extraordinary, because an example on a large scale, has been of late years furnished in the little Danish islands, and in one settlement, at least, of our own smaller islands, of the happiest effects resulting from such endeavours: so that men of great knowledge and experience in West Indian affairs, in estimating the effects of the labours of the missionaries, who were employed in this benevolent service, by a pecuniary standard, declared, that a Slave, by becoming one of their converts, was worth half as much more than his former value, on account of his superior morality, sobriety, industry, subordination, and general good conduct.[23]