Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/174

( 140 ) useful, because provisions raised, says Botham, feed negroes better than any dry or other provisions imported. It would also preserve them from falling off as they do at present. Epidemicks [sic], says Coor, are more fatal to poor and ill fed, than to well fed, hearty slaves. But one fatal epidemick [sic] prevailed while he was in Jamaica. It attacked all ranks of whites and blacks, and generally poor, ill-fed negroes died of it. Few well-fed negroes died of it, and not one white man. Nor need the planters be afraid that the dismantling of the canes for provision-land, will rob them of their former profits. If a hundred negroes cultivate as many acres of cane, and fifty acres be deducted for their support, it is not improbable but that the fifty in canes, with the labour of a hundred persons, may produce as much as the hundred acres before; for a hundred labourers are better able to cultivate and improve fifty, than twice the number of acres, and the earth will remunerate in proportion to the toil and improvement bestowed upon it. Of this we may adduce a striking instance, from Fitzmaurice, He observes that a gentleman had two estates in Clarendon, one of which Mr. Fitzmaurice managed. This gentleman had too few negroes for both estates, but sufficient for one. He, however, cultivated both. They produced him together 150 hogsheads of sugar per annum. He became in debt, and his negroes suffered. At length, changing his plan, he dismantled one of his estates, and put both the gangs on the other. these were then amply sufficient, and he is now making 400 hhds. that is 250 more hhds. per year upon this one estate, than upon both together before, and is now a clear man. This regulation then would tend to the proprietor's benefit, as well as to the increase of the slaves.

9.Let every encouragement be given to the moral and religious instruction of the slaves.

A deficiency in this particular, appears throughout the whole of the evidence. There has been, however, here and there, a solitary instance of a contrary nature, in the knowledge of Coor, Forster, Captain Smith,