But he would show again the futility of the, argument of his honourable friend.  He himself had admitted that it was in the power of the colonists to correct the various abuses, by which the Negro population was restrained.  But, they could not do this without improving the condition of their slaves; without making them approximate towards the rank of citizens; without giving them some little interest in their labour, which would occasion them to work with the energy of men.  But now the Assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, “that though the Negroes were allowed the afternoons of only one day in every week they would do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their own benefit as in the whole day, when employed in their masters’ service.”  Now, after, this, confession, the House might burn all his calculations relative to the Negro population; for, if it had not yet quite reached the desirable state which he had pointed out, this confession had proved, that further supplies were not wanted.  A Negro, if he worked for himself, could do double work.  By an improvement then in the mode of labour, the work in the islands could be doubled.  But if so, what would become of the argument of his honourable friend? for then only half the number of the present labourers were necessary.

He would now try this argument of expediency by other considerations.  The best informed writers on the subject had told us, that the purchase of new Negroes was injurious to the, planters.  But if this statement was just, would not the abolition be beneficial to them?  That it would, was the opinion of Mr. Long, their own historian.  “If the Slave Trade,” says he, “was prohibited for four or five years, it would enable them to retrieve their affairs by preventing them from running into debt, either by renting or purchasing Negroes.”  To this acknowledgment he would add a fact from the evidence, which was, that a North American province, by such a prohibition alone for a few years from being deeply plunged in debt, had become independent, rich, and flourishing.

The next consideration was the danger, to which the islands, were exposed from the newly imported slaves.  Mr. Long, with a view of preventing insurrections, had advised, that a duty equal to a prohibition, might be laid on the importation of Coromantine slaves.  After noticing one insurrection, which happened through their means, he speaks of another in the following year, in which thirty-three Coromantines, “most of whom had been newly imported, murdered and wounded no less than nineteen Whites in the, space of an hour.”  To the authority of Mr Long he would add the recorded opinion of a committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica, which was appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing future insurrections.  The committee reported, that “the rebellion had originated, like most others, with the Coromantines,” and they proposed that a bill should he brought in for laying a higher duty on the importation of these