ease among them. This
decrease in the island of Jamaica was but trifling, or, rather, it had
ceased some years ago; and if there was a decrease, it was only on the
imported slaves. It appeared from the privy council report, that from
1698 to 1730 the decrease was three and a-half per cent.; from 1730 to
1755 it was two and a-half per cent.; from 1755 to 1768 it was lessened
to one and three-quarters; and from 1768 to 1788 it was not more than
one per cent. This last decrease was not greater than could be accounted
for from hurricanes and consequent famines, and from the number of
imported Africans who perished in the seasoning. The latter was a cause
of mortality, which, it was evident, would cease with the importations.
This conclusion was confirmed in part by Dr. Anderson, who, in his
testimony to the Assembly of Jamaica, affirmed that there was a
considerable increase on the properties of the island, and particularly
in the parish in which he resided.

He would now proceed to establish his second proposition, that from
henceforth a very considerable increase might be expected. This he might
support by a close reasoning upon the preceding facts; but the testimony
of his opponents furnished him with sufficient evidence. He could show,
that wherever the slaves were treated better than ordinary, there was
uniformly an increase in their number. Look at the estates of Mr.
Willock, Mr. Ottley, Sir Ralph Payne, and others. In short, he should
weary the committee, if he were to enumerate the instances of
plantations, which were stated in the evidence to have kept up their
numbers only from a little variation in their treatment. A remedy also
had been lately found for a disorder, by which vast numbers of infants
had been formerly swept away. Mr. Long, also, had laid it down, that
whenever the slaves should bear a certain proportion to the produce,
they might be expected to keep up their numbers; but this proportion
they now exceeded. The Assembly of Jamaica had given it also as their
opinion, "that when once the sexes should become nearly equal in point
of number, there was no reason to suppose, that the increase of the
Negroes by generation would fall short of the natural increase of the
labouring poor in Great Britain." But the inequality, here spoken of,
could only exist in the case of the African Negroes, of whom more males
were imported than females; and this inequality would be done away soon
after the trade should cease