Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves Part 3

Footnotes:

[1] See d.i.c.kson's Mitigation of Slavery, p. 18.

[2] See d.i.c.kson's Mitigation of Slavery, p. 339.

[3] Mitigation of Slavery, p. 50.

[4] See d.i.c.kson's Mitigation of Slavery, p. 102.

[5] A part of the black regiments were bought in Africa as recruits, and were not transported in slave-ships, and, never under West India masters: but it was only a small part compared with the whole number in the three cases.

[6] Memoire historique et politique des Colonies, et particulierement de celle de St. Domingue, &c. Paris, August 1814. 8vo. p. 58.

[7] Pp. 125, 126.

[8] There were occasionally marauding parties from the mountains, who pillaged in the plains; but these were the old insurgent, and not the emanc.i.p.ated Negroes.

[9] P. 78.

[10] Memoires, p. 311.

[11] Ibid. p. 324.

[12] The French were not the authors of tearing to pieces the Negroes alive by bloodhounds, or of suffocating them by hundreds at a time in the holds of ships, or of drowning them (whole cargoes) by scuttling and sinking the vessels;--but the _planters_.

[13] All the slave-population was to be emanc.i.p.ated in 18 years; and this consisted at the time of pa.s.sing the decree of from 250,000 to 300,000 souls.

[14] See Dr. d.i.c.kson's Mitigation of Slavery, London 1814, from whence every thing relating to this subject is taken. Dr. d.i.c.kson had been for many years secretary to Governor Hay, in Barbadoes, where he had an opportunity of studying the Slave agriculture as a system. Being in London afterwards when the Slave Trade controversy was going on in Parliament, he distinguished himself by silencing the different writers who defended the West Indian slavery. There it was that Mr. Steele addressed himself to him by letter, and sent him those invaluable papers, which the Doctor afterwards published under the modest t.i.tle of "Mitigation of Slavery by Steele and d.i.c.kson." No one was better qualified than Dr. d.i.c.kson to become the Editor of Mr. Steele.

[15] It is much to be feared that this beautiful order of things was broken up after Mr. Steele's death by his successors, either through their own prejudices, or their unwillingness or inability to stand against the scoffs and prejudices of others. It may be happy, however, for thousands now in slavery, that Mr. Steele lived to accomplish his plan. The const.i.tuent parts and result of it being known, a fine example is shown to those who may be desirous of trying emanc.i.p.ation.

[16] Mr. Botham's account is confirmed incontrovertibly by the fact, that sugar made in the East Indies can be brought to England (though it has three times the distance to come, and of course three times the freight to pay), and yet be afforded to the consumer at as cheap a rate as any that can be brought thither from the West.

[17] d.i.c.kson's Mitigation of Slavery, p. 213, where it is proved that bought slaves never refund their purchase-money to their owners.

[18] P. 125.