Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/92

( 58 ) removal of their houses, many of them have so taken to heart, as to have died.

Whether or no [sic] their food may be considered as sufficient in general for their support, may be better seen from the following than the preceding account. Mr. Cook says that they have not sufficient food. He has known both Africans and Creoles eat the putrid carcases of animals, and is convinced they did it through want. Mr. J. Terry has known them, on estates where they have been worse fed than on others, eat the putrid carcases of animals also. Dead mules, horses, and cows, says Mr. Coor, were all burnt under the inspection of a white man. Had they been buried, the negroes would have dug them up in the night to eat them through hunger. It was generally said to be done to prevent the negroes from eating them, lest it should breed distempers.

Besides these, there are proofs of a different nature. Giles, Coor, Captain Giles, Captain Smith, Davison, Duncan, Harrison, and Dalrymple, agree, that many of the slaves in the West-Indies were thieves, but they all agree also in asserting, that they stole in consequence of hunger, or being ill fed. The usual objects of their theft are said by Terry, Clappeson, Duncan, Harrison, and the Dean of Middleham, to be provisions or food. Where they were well fed, on the other hand, say Davison and Captain Giles, they did not steal, and, where they were ill fed, say Terry and Duncan, they stole at the very hazard of their lives. The Dean of Middleham and Harrison confirm this, by stating that several in consequence of attempting to steal provisions, have been