Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/179

Rh which negroes have been cruelly flogged, and otherwise ill-treated, for—the sin of praying! but this will be more fully noticed hereafter. It is here briefly hinted at, as a proof of the cruel degradation to which the slave system exposed its wretched victims.

 is truly painful to perpetuate the remembrance of the crimes of our fellow-creatures, and the writer has felt some hesitation in giving these melancholy details: yet, without a specimen at least, and more will not be given, of the cruelties practised by individuals under this horrid system, the work would be very incomplete, and our reasons for joy and gratitude on its abolition would not be duly estimated. There is not one of the annexed anecdotes but is indisputably authenticated, and they are but a few out of a mass.

A wretch in Barbadoes had chained a negro girl to the floor, and flogged her till she was nearly expiring. Two gentlemen, hearing her cries, burst open the door and found her. The cruel tyrant retreated from their resentment, but cried out exultingly, that he had only given her thirty-nine lashes (the number limited by law) at any one time, and that he had only inflicted that number three times since the beginning of the night; but added, he was resolved to give her the fourth thirty-nine before morning, and would flog her to death if he pleased, as well as prosecute the gentlemen, whose humanity led them to interfere, and, in so doing, to trespass, by breaking open his door. 