Both its
inexpediency and injustice had been established by the honourable mover. He
dwelt much on the unhappy situation of the Negros in the West Indies, who
were without the protection of government or of efficient laws, and subject
to the mere caprice of men, who were at once the parties, the judges, and
the executioners.
He instanced an overseer, who, having thrown a Negro into a copper of
boiling cane-juice for a trifling offence, was punished merely by the loss
of his place, and by being obliged to pay the value of the slave. He stated
another instance of a girl of fourteen, who was dreadfully whipped for
coming too late to her work. She fell down motionless after it; and was
then dragged along the ground, by the legs, to an hospital; where she died.
The murderer, though tried, was acquitted by a jury of his peers, upon the
idea, that it was impossible a master could destroy his own property. This
was a notorious fact. It was published in the Jamaica Gazette; and it had
even happened since the question of the abolition had been started.
The only argument used against such cruelties, was the master's interest in
the slave. But he urged the common cruelty to horses, in which their
drivers had an actual interest with the drivers of men in the colonies, as
a proof that this was no security.
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