Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/115

( 81 ) or owners, if they should think it proper to inflict more; for, Woolrich says, that the chief whipper lays on their back forty, fifty, sixty, or more lashes, at the pleasure of the owner or overseer. Captain Ross has known negroes receive two hundred lashes, where the law would give only thirty- nine. Mr. Cook has known a field slave receive two hundred lashes, by order of the overseer, and a domestick fifty, by order of his mistress. Mr. M. Terry also observes, that the law was restricted to thirty-nine, but it was not in the least attended to during his experience. He has, in short, seen it broken repeatedly. The same language is also spoken by others.

Thirdly, Because, if there should be some, who bear the law in their minds, at the time of punishing, they evade it by various means. Whipping, says Mr. Fitzmaurice, was understood to be limited to thirty-nine lashes; but it was often evaded, by putting the negro into the stocks, and giving him thirty-nine for the same offence, next day. We find also, by Captain Ross's account, a magistrate, and of course, a guardian of the laws, evading it in like manner, for that gentleman has seen John Shackle, Esq. a magistrate in Jamaica, flogging a negro three times in one day, namely at breakfast, dinner, and at six in the evening: but the negro was in the stocks between the floggings. Captain Cook also expressly says, that the law may be evaded by splitting a crime into many, and, by intervals, dividing the times of punishment, and of this, where slaves are punished at home, he says there are daily instances. Returning home one evening late with Major Fitch of the 90th regt. they heard most dreadful cries, and, on approaching the square at Bridge-town, found they proceeded from the house of a man that sold liquor, and heard the repeated lashes of a whip, on a creature whom they conceived to be dying. On their requesting admission, the cruelty seemed to be wantonly increased, which so provoked them that they broke open the door, and found a negro girl of about nineteen chained to the floor, almost expiring with agony and loss of blood. The man taking refuge behind his counter from their indignation, and thinking himself free from the L