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n several of the islands, particularly in St.
Kitt's, for the slaves to be branded with the initial letters of their
master's name; and a load of heavy iron hooks hung about their necks.
Indeed on the most trifling occasions they were loaded with chains;
and often instruments of torture were added. The iron muzzle,
thumb-screws, &c. are so well known, as not to need a description, and
were sometimes applied for the slightest faults. I have seen a negro
beaten till some of his bones were broken, for even letting a pot boil
over. Is it surprising that usage like this should drive the poor
creatures to despair, and make them seek a refuge in death from those
evils which render their lives intolerable--while,

 "With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast,
 They view their lamentable lot, and find
 No rest!"

This they frequently do. A negro-man on board a vessel of my master,
while I belonged to her, having been put in irons for some trifling
misdemeanor, and kept in that state for some days, being weary of
life, took an opportunity of jumping overboard into the sea; however,
he was picked up without being drowned. Another, whose life was also a
burden to him, resolved to starve himself to death, and refused to eat
any victuals; this procured him a severe flogging: and he also, on the
first occasion which offered, jumped overboard at Charles Town, but
was saved.

Nor is there any greater regard shewn to the little property than
there is to the persons and lives of the negroes. I have already
related an instance or two of particular oppression out of many which
I have witnessed; but the following is frequent in all the islands.
The wretched field-slaves, after toiling all the day for an unfeeling
owner, who gives them but little victuals, steal sometimes a few
moments from rest or refreshment to gather some small portion of
grass, according as their time will admit. This they commonly tie up
in a parcel; (either a bit, worth six pence; or half a bit's-worth)
and bring it to town, or to the market, to sell. Nothing is more
common than for the white people on this occasion to take the grass
from them without paying for it; and not only so, but too often also,
to my knowledge, our clerks, and many others, at the same time have
committed acts of violence on the poor, wretched, and helpless
females; whom I have seen for hours stand crying to no purpose, and
get no redress or pay of any kind. Is not this one common and crying
sin enough to bring down God's judgment on the islands? He tells us
the oppressor and the oppressed are both in his hands; and if these
are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the
bruised, which our Saviour speaks of, who are they? One of these
depredators once, in St. Eustatia, came on board of our vessel, and
bought some fowls and pigs of me; and a whole day after his departure
with the things he returned again and wanted his money back: I refused
to give it; and, not seeing my captain on board, he began the common
pranks with me; and swore he would even break open my chest and take
my money. I therefore expected, as my captain was absent, that he
would be as good as his word: and he was just proceeding to strike me,
when fortunately a British seaman on board, whose heart had not been
debauched by a West India climate, interposed and prevented him. But
had the cruel man struck me I certainly should have defended myself at
the hazard of my life; for what is life to a man thus oppressed? He
went away, however, swearing; and threatened that whenever he caught
me on shore he would shoot me, and pay for me afterwards.

The small account in which the life of a negro is held in the West
Indies is so universally known, that it might seem impertinent to
quote the following extract, if some people had not been hardy enough
of late to assert that negroes are on the same footing in that respect
as Europeans. By the 329th Act, page 125, of the Assembly of
Barbadoes, it is enacted 'That if any negro, or other slave, under
punishment by his master, or his order, for running away, or any other
crime or misdemeanor towards his said master, unfortunately shall
suffer in life or member, no person whatsoever shall be liable to a
fine; but if any man shall out of _wantonness, or only of
bloody-mindedness, or cruel intention, wilfully kill a negro, or other
slave, of his own, he shall pay into the public treasury fifteen
pounds sterling_.' And it is the same in most, if not all, of the West
India islands. Is not this one of the many acts of the islands which
call loudly for redress? And do not the assembly which enacted it
deserve the appellation of savages and brutes rather than of
Christians and men? It is an act at once unmerciful, unjust, and
unwise; which for cruelty would disgrace an assembly of those who are
called barbarians; and for its injustice and _insanity_ would shock
the morality and common sense of a Samaide or a Hottentot.

Shocking as this and many more acts of the bloody West India code at
first view appear, how is the iniquity of it heightened when we
consider to whom it may be extended! Mr. James Tobin, a zealous
labourer in the vineyard of slavery, gives an account of a French
planter of his acquaintance, in the island of Martinico, who shewed
him many mulattoes working in the fields like beasts of burden; and he
told Mr. Tobin these were all the produce of his own loins! And I
myself have known similar instances. Pray, reader, are these sons and
daughters of the French planter less his children by being begotten on
a black woman? And what must be the virtue of those legislators, and
the feelings of those fathers, who estimate the lives of their sons,
however begotten, at no more than fifteen pounds; though they should
be murdered, as the act says, _out of wantonness and bloody-mindedness_!
But is not the slave trade entirely a war with the heart of man? And
surely that which is begun by breaking down the barriers of virtue
involves in its continuance destruction to every principle, and buries
all sentiments in ruin!

I have often seen slaves, particularly those who were meagre, in
different islands, put into scales and weighed; and then sold from
three pence to six pence or nine pence a pound. My master, however,
whose humanity was shocked at this mode, used to sell such by the
lump. And at or after a sale it was not uncommon to see negroes taken
from their wives, wives taken from their husbands, and children from
their parents, and sent off to other islands, and wherever else their
merciless lords chose; and probably never more during life to see each
other! Oftentimes my heart has bled at these partings; when the
friends of the departed have been at the water side, and, with sighs
and tears, have kept their eyes fixed on the vessel till it went out
of sight.

A poor Creole negro I knew well, who, after having been often thus
transported from island to island, at last resided in Montserrat. This
man used to tell me many melanchol

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