t diffident in using. But Mr. Long had shown
his own prejudices also. For he justified the chaining of the Negros on
board the slave-vessels, on account of "their bloody, cruel, and malicious
dispositions." But hear his commendation of some of the Aborigines of
Jamaica, "who had miserably perished in caves, whither they had retired to
escape the tyranny of the Spaniards. These," says he, "left a glorious
monument of their having disdained to survive the loss of their liberty and
their country." And yet this same historian could not perceive that this
natural love of liberty might operate as strongly and as laudably in the
African Negro, as in the Indian of Jamaica.

He was concerned to acknowledge that these prejudices were yet further
strengthened by resentment against those who had taken an active part in
the abolition of the Slave-trade. But it was never the object of these to
throw a stigma on the whole body of the West Indians; but to prove the
miserable effects of the trade. This it was their duty to do; and if, in
doing this, disgraceful circumstances had come out, it was not their fault;
and it must never be forgotten that they were true.

That the slaves were exposed to great misery in the islands, was true as
well from inference as from facts: for what might not be expected from the
use of arbitrary power, where the three characters of party, judge, and
executioner were united! The slaves too were more capable on account of
their passions, than the beasts of the field, of exciting the passions of
their tyrants. 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, w