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Show 140 ON THE. SLAvERY AND CoMMERCE of thofe, who are annually imported, dying before the feafoning is over. This is furely an horrid and awful confideration: and thus does it appear, (and let it be remembered, that it is the lowell: calculation that has been ever made upon the fubjeCl:) that out of every annual fupply that is {hipped from the coafl: of Africa, l forty thoufand lives are regularly expended, even before it can be faid, that there is really any additional fl:ock for the colonies. When the fcafoning is over, and the furvivors 4re thus enabled to endure the ufm\1 talk of flavcs, they are c~nfidered as real and fubfl:antial fupplies. *From this period therefore we fhall defcribe their fituation. They t Including the number that perin1 on the voyage, and in the fcafoning. It is generally thought that not half the number purchafcd can be confidered as an additional flock and of courfe that so,ooo are con fumed within the firft tw~ years from their embarkation. • That part of the account, that has been hitherto given, extends to all the Europeans and their colonifh, who arc concerned in this horrid pratl.icc. But we arc forry that we mult now make~ difl-inCl.ion, and confine the rem:1ining part of it to the colomlh of the Britifh. 'Veil India iOands, and to thofe of the fouthern provinces of Nonh Amt:rica. As the emplo>=- mcnt oF T H E HuMAN SPECIES. 141 They are fummoned at five in the morning to begin their work. T his work may be divided into two kinds, the culture of the field s, and the colleCl:ion of grafs for cattle. The Jail: is the moil: laborious and intolerable employment; as the grafs can only be colleCl:ed blade by blade, and is to be fetched frequently twice a day at a confiderable difl:ance from the plantation. In thefe two occupations they are jointly taken up, with no other in termiffion than that of taking their fubfifl:ence twice, till nine at night. They then feparate for their refpeCl: ive huts, when they gather fl:icks, prepare their {upper, and attend their families. This employs them till midnight, when they go to reO:. Such is their daily way of life for rather more than half the year. They are jixteen hours, including two intervals at meals, in the fervice of their maf-ment of O:~.ves is difFerent in the two parts of the world b.rt mentioned, we 01all content ourfelves with dcfcribing it, as it cxifls in one of them, and we fhall afterwards annex fuch treatment and fuch confequenccs as are applicable to both. We have only to :~.dd, that the reader mull: not confider our account as lmivtrf~lfy, but only gemr~lly, true. ters: |
