was not prepared the evening before, it sometimes happens that they are
called again to labour before they can satisfy their hunger. And here no
delay or excuse will avail; for if they are not in the field immediately
upon the usual notice, they must expect to feel the overseer's lash. In
crop time (which lasts many months) they are obliged, by turns, to work
most of the night in the boiling house. Thus their owners, from a desire
of making the greatest gain by the labour of their slaves, lay heavy
burdens on them, and yet feed and cloath them very sparingly, and some
scarce feed or cloath them at all; so that the poor creatures are
obliged to shift for their living in the best manner they can, which
occasions their being often killed in the neighbouring lands, stealing
potatoes, or other food, to satisfy their hunger. And if they take any
thing from the plantation they belong to, though under such pressing
want, their owners will correct them severely for taking a little of
what they have so hardly laboured for; whilst many of themselves riot in
the greatest luxury and excess. It is matter of astonishment how a
people, who, as a nation, are looked upon as generous and humane, and so
much value themselves for their uncommon sense of the benefit of
liberty, can live in the practice of such extreme oppression and
inhumanity, without seeing the inconsistency of such conduct, and
feeling great remorse. Nor is it less amazing to hear these men calmly
making calculations about the strength and lives of their fellow men. In
Jamaica, if six in ten of the new imported Negroes survive the
seasoning, it is looked upon as a gaining purchase. And in most of the
other plantations, if the Negroes live eight or nine years, their labour
is reckoned a sufficient compensation for their cost. If calculations of
this sort were made upon the strength and labour of beasts of burden, it
would not appear so strange; but even then, a merciful man would
certainly use his beast with more mercy than is usually shewn to the
poor Negroes. Will not the groans, the dying groans, of this deeply