Page:A Dissuasion from the Slave Trade.djvu/41

 may think saucy; not shewing respect enough to him; not doing with agility some hard piece of work ordered them; and any thing which the Overseer may take exception at. They beat them with thick clubs, and you may see their bodies all whaled in a terrible manner.

Mr. George Whitefield writes in a letter to the Planters in Virginia, Carolina, &amp;c. "The task-masters, by their inhuman usage and unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs and made long furrows, and at length brought them even to death." This is the fate which great numbers in the islands and Southern Provinces meet with. When speaking of their cloathing and food, he adds, "When passing along, I have viewed your plantations cleared and cultivated, many spacious houses built, and the Owners of them faring sumptuously every day. My blood has frequently run cold within me to consider how many of your Slaves had neither convenient food to eat or proper raiment to put on, notwithstanding many of the comforts you enjoy were solely owing to their indefatigable labours." In Virginia, &amp;c. in case a Negro gives the slightest affront to a white person, he goes to the negroes Master