An honourable member (Mr. Stanley) had spoken of the
impossibility of cultivating the estates there without further importations
of Negros; and yet, of all the authorities he had brought to prove his
case, there was scarcely one which might not be pressed to serve more or
less effectually against him. Almost every planter he had named had found
his Negros increase under the good treatment he had professed to give them;
and it was an axiom, throughout the whole evidence, that wherever they were
well used importations were not necessary. It had been said indeed by some
adverse witnesses, that in Jamaica all possible means had been used to keep
up the stock by breeding; but how preposterous was this, when it was
allowed that the morals of the slaves had been totally neglected, and that
the planters preferred buying a larger proportion of males than females!
The misfortune was, that prejudice and not reason was the enemy to be
subdued. The prejudices of the West Indians on these points were numerous
and inveterate. Mr. Long himself had characterized them on this account, in
terms which he should have felt diffident in using. But Mr. Long had shown
his own prejudices also.
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