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Show 48 gave particular attention to the subject*, that in the sugar making season, the slaves are generally allowed but four out of the twenty four hours, for sleep. From these too I learned, that a gang of slaves is used up in ten years. Of the young men imported from Africa, one out of ten dies yearly. To supply this enormous waste of life, above twenty five thousand slaves are imported from Africat, in vessels so crowded, that sometimes one quarter, sometimes one half of the wretched creatures bought in Africa perish in agony before reaching land. It is to be feared, that Cuban slavery, traced from the moment when the African touches the deck, to the happier moment when he finds his grave on the ocean or the plantation, includes• an amount of crime and misery not to be paralleled in any portion of the * My accounts from Cuba have been received from Dr. Madden and David Turnbull, Esq.; the former, one of the British commissioners, resident nt Havana to enforce the treaty with Spain in relation to the slave trade; the latter, a gentleman who visited Cuba chiefly if not solely to enquire into slavery. Mr. Turnbull's account of Cuba, in his" Travels in the West," deserves to be read. The reports of such men, confirmed in a very important particular by Mr. Gurney, have an authority, which obliges me to speak a.s I have done of the slave-system of this island. If indeed (what is most unlikely,) they have fallen into errors on the subject, these can easily be e.xposed, and I shall rejoice in being the means of bringing out the truth. t There are different estimates of the number, some making it much greater than the text. \ 49 globe, civilized or savage. And there are more reasons than one why I would bring this horrid picture before the minds of my countrymen. We, We, do much to sustain this system of horror and blood. The Cuban slave trade is carried on in vessels built especially for this use in American ports. These vessels often sail under the American flag, and are aided by American merchant-men, and, as is feared, by American capital. And this is not all ; the sugar, in producing of which so many of our fellow creatures perish miserably, is shipped in great quantities to this country. ·we are the customers, who stimulate by our demands this infernal cruelty. And knowing this, shall we become accessories to the murder of our brethren, by coutinuing to use the fruit of the hard-wrung toil which destroys them? The sugar of Cuba comes to us drenched with human blood. So we ought to see it and to turn from it with loathing. The guilt which produces it, ought to be put down by the spontaneous, instinctive horror of the civilized world. There is another fact worthy attention. It is said, that most of the plantations in Cuba, which have been recently brought under cultivation, belong to Americans, that the number of American slave-holders is increasing rapidly on the Island, and consequently that the importation of human cargoes from Africa finds much of its encourage- S |