Perhaps persons might have been prejudiced by living in
the towns, to which slaves were often sent for punishment; and where there
were many small proprietors; or by seeing no Negro otherwise than as
belonging to the labouring poor; but they appeared to him to want nothing
but liberty; and it was only occasionally that they were abused.
There were two prejudices with respect to the colonies, which he would
notice. The first was, that cruel usage occasioned the inequality of births
and deaths among the slaves. But did cruelty cause the excess of deaths
above births in the city of London? No--this excess had other causes. So it
had among the slaves. Of these more males were imported than females: they
were dissolute too in their morals; they had also diseases peculiar to
themselves. But in those islands where they nearly kept up their numbers,
there was this difficulty, that the equality was preserved by the increase
on one estate compensating for the decrease on another. These estates,
however, would not interchange their numbers; whereas, where freedom
prevailed, the free labourers circulated from one employer to another, and
appeared wherever they were wanted.
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