THE
HORRORS
OF
NEGRO SLAVERY,
&c.
SECOND EDITION.
Price One Shilling.
S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street.
THE
HORRORS
OF THE
NEGRO SLAVERY
EXISTING IN OUR
West Indian Islands,
IRREFRAGABLY DEMONSTRATED
FROM
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
RECENTLY PRESENTED TO
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, PICCADILLY; MESS. RICHARDSONS,
CORNHILL; R. BICKERSTAFF, ESSEX STREET, STRAND;
AND HAZARD, BATH.
1805.
[Pg 1]
THE
HORRORS
OF
NEGRO SLAVERY,
&c.
In the last Session of Parliament a variety of papers respectingthe Slave Trade was laid on the table of theHouse of Commons, and among them, the followingextract of a letter from Lord Seaforth, the Governor ofBarbadoes, to Lord Hobart, dated at Barbadoes, the18th March 1802, viz. “Your Lordship will observe inthe last days proceedings of the Assembly, that the majorityof the House had taken considerable offence at amessage of mine, recommending an act to be passed tomake the murder of a Slave felony. At present the finefor the crime is only fifteen pounds currency, or ELEVENPOUNDS FOUR SHILLINGS STERLING.”
It was difficult to conceive a stronger proof of the deplorablyunprotected condition of the Negro Slaves inBarbadoes, the oldest and most civilized of our slave[Pg 2]colonies, than is furnished by the above official document.In a community where even the life of a Negroslave is estimated at the cheap rate of eleven pounds fourshillings sterling, and where a proposition to raise itslegal value to a price which may be less revolting to Europeanfeelings is resented as an affront by a grave legislativeassembly; it would argue an utter ignorance of thenature of man, and of the principles by which his conductis usually guided, to expect that the general treatment ofNegro slaves should be humane and lenient. But we arenot at present reduced to the necessity of inferring, by theaid of disputable analogies, the practical nature of theexisting slavery, from the state of the law