By the gradual adoption of
these remedies, he could prove from the report on the table, that the
decrease of slaves in Jamaica had lessened to such a degree, that from the
year 1774 to the present it was not quite one in a hundred, and that in
fact they were at present in a state of increase; for that the births in
that island, at this moment, exceeded the deaths by one thousand or eleven
hundred per annum. Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, and the Bermudas, were, like
Jamaica, lessening their decrease, and holding forth an evident and
reasonable expectation of a speedy state of increase by natural population.
But allowing the number of negros even to decrease for a time, there were
methods which would ensure the welfare of the West India islands. The lands
there might be cultivated by fewer hands, and this to greater advantage to
the proprietors and to this country, by the produce of cinnamon, coffee,
and cotton, than by that of sugar. The produce of the plantations might
also be considerably increased, even in the case of sugar, with less hands
than were at present employed, if the owners of them would but introduce
machines of husbandry. Mr. Long himself, long resident as a planter, had
proved, upon his own estate, that the plough, though so little used in the
West Indies, did the service of a hundred slaves, and caused the same
ground to produce three hogsheads of sugar, which, when cultivated by
slaves, would only produce two.
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