But what
regulations by the British Parliament could prevent these contagions, or
remove them suddenly, when they appeared?
Neither would regulations be effectual, as they related to the protection
of the slaves in the West Indies. It might perhaps be enacted, as Mr.
Vaughan had suggested, that their punishments should be moderate; and that
the number of lashes should be limited. But the colonial legislatures had
already done as much, as the magic of words alone could do, upon this
subject: yet the evidence upon the table clearly proved, that the only
protection of slaves was in the clemency of their masters. Any barbarity
might be exercised with impunity, provided no White person were to see it,
though it happened in the sight of a thousand slaves. Besides, by splitting
the offence, and inflicting the punishment at intervals, the law could be
evaded, although the fact was within the reach of the evidence of a White
man. Of this evasion, Captain Cook, of the eighty-ninth regiment, had given
a shocking instance: and Chief Justice Ottley had candidly confessed, that
"he could devise no method of bringing a master, so offending, to justice,
while the evidence of the slave continued inadmissible.
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