Whatever might have been said to the contrary, it was plainly to be inferred from the evidence that the slaves were not protected by law.  Colonial statutes had indeed been passed, but they were a dead letter; since, however ill they were treated, they were not considered as having a right to redress.  An instance of astonishing cruelty by a Jew had been mentioned by Mr. Ross; it was but justice to say, that the man was held in detestation for it, but yet no one had ever thought of calling him to a legal account.  Mr. Ross conceived a master had a right to punish his slave in whatever manner he might think proper; the same was declared by numberless other witnesses.  Some instances indeed had lately occurred of convictions.  A master had wantonly cut the mouth of a child, of six months old, almost from ear to ear.  But did not the verdict of the jury show, that the doctrine of calling masters to an account was entirely novel, as it only pronounced him “Guilty, subject to the opinion of the court, if immoderate correction of a slave by his master be a crime indictable!” The court determined in the affirmative; and what was the punishment of this barbarous act?—­A fine of forty shillings currency, equivalent to about twenty-five shillings sterling.

The slaves were but ill off in point of medical care.  Sometimes four or five, and even eight or nine thousand of them, were under the care of one medical man; which, dispersed on different and distant estates, was a greater number than he could possibly attend to.

It was also in evidence that they were in general under-fed; they were supported partly by the produce of their own provision-ground, and partly by an allowance of flour and grain from their masters.  In one of the islands, where provision-ground did not answer one year in three, the allowance to a working Negro was but from five to nine pints of grain per week:  in Dominica, where it never failed, from six to seven quarts:  in Nevis and St. Christopher’s, where there was no provision-ground, it was but eleven pints.  Add to this, that it might be still less, as the circumstances of their masters might become embarrassed, and in this case both an abridgment of their food and an increase of their labour would follow.

But the great cause of the decrease of the slaves was in the non-residence of the planters.  Sir George Yonge, and many others, had said, they had seen the slaves treated in a manner which their owners would have resented if they had known it.  Mr. Orde spoke in the strongest terms of the misconduct of managers.  The fact was, that these in general sought to establish their characters by producing large crops at a small immediate expense; too little considering how far the slaves might suffer from ill-treatment and excessive labour.  The pursuit of such a system was a criterion for judging of their characters, as both Mr. Long and Mr. Ottley had confessed.