Dr. Priestley, and the father of Mrs.
Barbauld; who were both of them friends to that question. Their
sentiments he had imbibed; but, although bred at the feet of Gamaliel,
he resolved to judge for himself, and he left England for Jamaica.

He found the situation of the slaves much better than he had imagined.
Setting aside liberty, they were as well off as the poor in Europe. They
had little want of clothes or fuel; they had a house and garden found
them, were never imprisoned for debts, nor deterred from marrying
through fear of being unable to support a family; their orphans and
widows were taken care of, as they themselves were when old and
disabled; they had medical attendance without expense; they had private
property, which no master ever took from them; and they were resigned to
their situation, and looked for nothing beyond it. Perhaps persons might
have been prejudiced by living in the towns, to which slaves were often
sent for punishment; and where there were many small proprietors; or by
seeing no negro otherwise than as belonging to the labouring poor; but
they appeared to him to want nothing but liberty; and it was only
occasionally that they were abused.

There were two prejudices with respect to the colonies, which he would
notice. The first was, that cruel usage occasioned the inequality of
births and deaths among the slaves. But did cruelty cause the excess of
deaths above births in the city of London? No--this excess had other
causes. So it had among the slaves. Of these more males were imported
than females: they were dissolute too in their morals; they had also
diseases peculiar to themselves. But in those islands where they nearly
kept up their numbers, there was this difficulty, that the equality was
preserved by the increase on one estate compensating for the decrease on
another. These estates, however, would not interchange their numbers;
whereas, where freedom prevailed, the free labourers circulated from one
employer to another, and appeared wherever they were wanted.

The second was, that all chastisement of the slaves was cruelty. But
this was not true. Their owners generally withdrew them from public
justice; so that they, who would have been publicly executed elsewhere,
were often kept alive by their masters, and were found punished again
and again for repeating their faults. Distributive justice occasioned
many punishments; as one slave was to be protected against every other
slave: and