To what a length the ill treatment of them might be carried,
might be learnt from the instance which General Tottenham mentioned to have
seen in the year 1780 in the streets of Bridge Town, Barbadoes: "A youth
about nineteen (to use his own words in the evidence), entirely naked, with
an iron collar about his neck, having five long projecting spikes. His body
both before and behind, was covered with wounds. His belly and thighs were
almost cut to pieces, with running ulcers all over them; and a finger might
have been laid in some of the weals. He could not sit down, because his
hinder part was mortified; and it was impossible for him to lie down, on
account of the prongs of his collar." He supplicated the General for
relief. The latter asked, who had punished him so dreadfully? The youth
answered, his master had done it. And because he could not work, this same
master, in the same spirit of perversion, which extorts from scripture a
justification of the Slave-trade, had fulfilled the apostolic maxim, that
he should have nothing to eat. The use he meant to make of this instance
was to show the unprotected state of the slaves. What must it be, where
such an instance could pass not only unpunished, but almost unregarded! If,
in the streets of London, but a dog were to be seen lacerated like this
miserable man, how would the cruelty of the wretch be execrated, who had
thus even abused a brute!
The judicial punishments also inflicted upon the Negro showed the low
estimation, in which, in consequence of the strength of old customs and
deep-rooted prejudices, they were held.
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