he table, that the decrease of slaves in Jamaica had
lessened to such a degree, that from the year 1774 to the present it was
not quite one in a hundred, and that, in fact, they were at present in a
state of increase; for that the births in that island, at this moment,
exceeded the deaths by one thousand or eleven hundred per annum.
Barbados, Nevis, Antigua, and the Bermudas, were, like Jamaica,
lessening their decrease, and holding forth an evident and reasonable
expectation of a speedy state of increase by natural population. But
allowing the number of Negroes even to decrease for a time, there were
methods which would insure the welfare of the West India islands. The
lands there might be cultivated by fewer hands, and this to greater
advantage to the proprietors and to this country, by the produce of
cinnamon, coffee, and cotton, than by that of sugar. The produce of the
plantations might also be considerably increased, even in the case of
sugar, with less hands than were at present employed, if the owners of
them would but introduce machines of husbandry. Mr. Long himself, long
resident as a planter, had proved, upon his own estate, that the plough,
though so little used in the West Indies, did the service of a hundred
slaves, and caused the same ground to produce three hogsheads of sugar,
which, when cultivated by slaves, would only produce two. The division
of work, which, in free and civilized countries, was the grand source of
wealth, and the reduction of the number of domestic servants, of whom
not less than from twenty to forty were kept in ordinary families,
afforded other resources for this purpose. But, granting that all these
suppositions should be unfounded, and that everyone of these substitutes
should fail for a time, the planters would be indemnified, as is the
case in all transactions of commerce, by the increased price of their
produce in the British market. Thus, by contending against the
abolition, they were defeated in every part of the argument. But he
would never give up the point, that the number of the slaves could be
kept up, by natural population, and without any dependence whatever on
the Slave Trade. He therefore called upon the house again to abolish it
as a criminal waste of life--it was utterly unnecessary--he had proved
it so by documents contained in the report. The merchants of Liverpool,
indeed, had thought otherwise, but he should be cautious how he assented
to their opinions. They d