elf had characterised them on this
account, in terms which he should have felt diffident in using. But Mr.
Long had shown his own prejudices also: for he justified the chaining of
the Negroes 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 in 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, Barbados: "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