oing to buy negroes. But we must have them; we
cannot be without them."[9] The overthrow of the monopoly, however, brought
no relief. In 1766 the price of new negroes in the West Indies ranged at
about L26;[10] and in 1788-1790 from L41 to L49. At this time the value
of a prime field hand, reared in the islands, was reported to be twice as
great as that of an imported African.[11]

[Footnote 9: _Groans of the Plantations_ (1679), p. 5, quoted in W.
Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1892),
II, 278, note.]

[Footnote 10: _Abridgement of the Evidence taken before a Committee of the
whole House: The Slave Trade_, no. 2 (London, 1790), p. 37.]

[Footnote 11: "An Old Member of Parliament," _Doubts on the Abolition of
the Slave Trade_ (London, 1790), p. 72, quoting Dr. Adair's evidence in the
_Privy Council Report_, part 3, Antigua appendix no. II].

In Virginia the rise was proportionate. In 1671 a planter wrote of his
purchase of a negro for L26. 10_s_ and said he supposed the price was the
highest ever paid in those parts; but a few years afterward a lot of four
men brought L30 a head, two women the same rate, and two more women L25
apiece; and before the end of the seventeenth century men were being
appraised at L40.[12] An official report from the colony in 1708 noted a
great increase of the slave supply in recent years, but observed that the
prices had nevertheless risen.[13] In 1754 George Washington paid L52 for a
man and nearly as much for a woman; in 1764 he bought a lot at L57 a head;
in 1768 he bought two mulattoes at L50 and L61.15_s_ respectively, a negro
for L66.10_s_, another at public vendue for L72, and a girl for L49.10_s_.
Finally in 1772 he bought five males, one of whom cost L50, another L65, a
third L75, and the remaining two L90 each;[14] and in the same year he was
offered L80 for a slave named Will Shagg whom his overseer described as an
incorrigible runaway.[15]

[Footnote 12: P.A. Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_, II, 88-92.]

[Footnote 13: _North Carolina Colonial Records_, I, 693.]

[Footnote 14: W.C. Ford, _George Washington_ (Paris and New York, 1900),
I, 125-127; _Washington as an Employer and Importer of Labor_ (Brooklyn,
1889).]

[Footnote 15: S.M. Hamilton, ed., _Letters to Washington_. IV, 127.]

Scattered items which might be cited from still other colonies make the
evidence conclusive that there was a general and sub