This, situation, of a want of the common necessaries of life, added to that of hard and continual labour, must be sufficiently painful of itself.  How then must the pain be sharpened, if it be accompanied with severity! if an unfortunate slave does not come into the field exactly at the appointed time, if, drooping with sickness or fatigue, he appears to work unwillingly, or if the bundle of grass that he has been collecting, appears too small in the eye of the overseer, he is equally sure of experiencing the whip.  This instrument erases the skin, and cuts out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke; and is so frequently applied, that the smack of it is all day long in the ears of those, who are in the vicinity of the plantations.  This severity of masters, or managers, to their slaves, which is considered only as common discipline, is attended with bad effects.  It enables them to behold instances of cruelty without commiseration, and to be guilty of them without remorse.  Hence those many acts of deliberate mutilation, that have taken place on the slightest occasions:  hence those many acts of inferiour, though shocking, barbarity, that have taken place without any occasion at all:  the very slitting[065] of ears has been considered as an operation, so perfectly devoid of pain, as to have been performed for no other reason than that for which a brand is set upon cattle, as a mark of property.

But this is not the only effect, which this severity produces:  for while it hardens their hearts, and makes them insensible of the misery of their fellow-creatures, it begets a turn for wanton cruelty.  As a proof of this, we shall mention one, among the many instances that occur, where ingenuity has been exerted in contriving modes of torture.  “An iron coffin, with holes in it, was kept by a certain colonist, as an auxiliary to the lash.  In this the poor victim of the master’s resentment was inclosed, and placed sufficiently near a fire, to occasion extreme pain, and consequently shrieks and groans, until the revenge of the master was satiated, without any other inconvenience on his part, than a temporary suspension of the slave’s labour.  Had he been flogged to death, or his limbs mutilated, the interest of the brutal tyrant would have suffered a more irreparable loss.

“In mentioning, this instance, we do not mean to insinuate, that it is common.  We know that it was reprobated by many.  All that we would infer from it is, that where men are habituated to a system of severity, they become wantonly cruel, and that the mere toleration of such an instrument of torture, in any country, is a clear indication, that this wretched class of men do not there enjoy the protection of any laws, that may be pretended to have been enacted in their favour.”