their property but endanger the island, inasmuch as converted
negroes grow more perverse and intractable than others, and hence of less
value for labour or sale. The disproportion of blacks to white being great,
the whites have no greater security than the diversity of the negroes'
languages, which would be destroyed by conversion in that it would be
necessary to teach them all English. The negroes are a sort of people so
averse to learning that they will rather hang themselves or run away than
submit to it." The Lords of Trade were enough impressed by this argument to
resolve that the question be left to the Barbadian government.[5]

[Footnote 5: _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West
Indies_, 1677-1680, p. 611.]

As illustrating the plantation regime in the island in the period of its
full industrial development, elaborate instructions are extant which were
issued about 1690 to Richard Harwood, manager or overseer of the Drax Hall
and Hope plantations belonging to the Codrington family. These included
directions for planting, fertilizing and cultivating the cane, for the
operation of the wind-driven sugar mill, the boiling and curing houses and
the distillery, and for the care of the live stock; but the main concern
was with the slaves. The number in the gangs was not stated, but the
expectation was expressed that in ordinary years from ten to twenty new
negroes would have to be bought to keep the ranks full, and it was advised
that Coromantees be preferred, since they had been found best for the work
on these estates. Plenty was urged in provision crops with emphasis upon
plantains and cassava,--the latter because of the certainty of its
harvest, the former because of the abundance of their yield in years of no
hurricanes and because the negroes especially delighted in them and
found them particularly wholesome as a dysentery diet. The services of a
physician had been arranged for, but the manager was directed to take great
care of the negroes' health and pay special attention to the sick. The
clothing was not definitely stated as to periods. For food each was
to receive weekly a pound of fish and two quarts of molasses, tobacco
occasionally, salt as needed, palm oil once a year, and home-grown
provisions in abundance. Offenses committed by the slaves were to be
punished immediately, "many of them being of the houmer of avoiding
punishment when threatened: to hang themselves." For drunkenness the