of the planters, broke down the doors, battered in the windows,
destroyed all the furniture, and carried away the provision stores to
their own houses.

These ravages continued for three days, during which, the slaves flocked
together in increasing numbers; in one place there were several
thousands assembled. Above five hundred of the insurgents were shot down
by the militia, before they could be arrested. The destruction of
property during the rebellion was loosely estimated at many hundred
thousand pounds. The canes on many estates were almost wholly burned; so
that extensive properties, which ordinarily yielded from two to three
hundred hogsheads, did not make more than fifteen or twenty.

Our informant mentioned two circumstances which he considered
remarkable. One was, that the insurgents never touched the property of
the estates to which they severally belonged; but went to the
neighboring or more distant estates. The other was, that during the
whole insurrection the negroes did not make a single attempt to destroy
life. On the other hand, the sacrifice of negroes during the rebellion,
and subsequent to it, was appalling. It was a long time before the white
man's thirst for blood could be satiated.

No general insurrection occurred after this one. However, as late as
1823, the proprietor of Mount Wilton--the noblest estate in the
island--was murdered by his slaves in a most horrid manner. A number of
men entered his bed-chamber at night. He awoke ere they reached him, and
grasped his sword, which always hung by his bed, but it was wrested from
his hand, and he was mangled and killed. His death was caused by his
_cruelties_, and especially by his _extreme licentiousness_. All the
females on this estate were made successively the victims of his lust.
This, together with his cruelties, so incensed the men, that they
determined to murder the wretch. Several of them were publicly executed.

Next to the actual occurrence of rebellions, _the fear of them_ deserves
to be enumerated among the evils which slavery entailed upon Barbadoes.
The dread of hurricanes to the people of Barbadoes is tolerable in
comparison with the irrepressible apprehensions of bloody rebellions. A
planter told us that he seldom went to bed without thinking he might be
murdered before morning.

But now the whites are satisfied that slavery was the sole instigator of
rebellions, and since its removal they have no fear on this score.

_Licenti