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The paged version of this document contained the following header content in the margin: Estates in the Colonies on which the Africans have increased by births.
of negroes. This estate at that time made about fifty hogsheads of sugar yearly. In consequence, however, of good usage the negroes increased so fast (the children seeming to swarm on this estate) that, before Mr Coor quitted the island, Mr. Dunn had not only doubled the produce, but had settled another estate out of it, which made sixty hogsheads per year, and he had never bought but six new negroes in the whole time.
In the same island, and parish of Clarendon, the negroes on Ramsbury estate increased so fast, says Mr. Fitzmaurice, that a gang of them was drawn off to settle a new estate, called Yarmouth, which he had then the care of, but the settlement was discontinued from the change of the attorney. On Orange, in St. James's, no negroes were bought for at least fifteen years, and they increased; as also on Eden in the same parish. He lived on both these estates.
Mr. Forster, speaking of the island of Antigua, says, that on the whole of Colonel Farley's plantations they had no need of new negroes. He has heard the Colonel say there was a considerable increase, but on one particularly. Mr. Thomas Gravenor's negroes also increased. He knew Captain Thomason, of Seacow Bay, Tortola, who wanted no new negroes for many years.
Mr. Duncan observes, that the treatment on the estate that he lived on, which was in the island of Antigua, was better than common: the effect was that the slaves increased. The slaves also on Sir G. Thomas's Belfast estate, and Carlisle's, and several others he cannot now name increased, or kept up their numbers without any addition by purchase.
Mr. Giles says, that on two estates where he lived, the increase of the slaves, under a milder treatment in the island of St. Croix, exceeded their decrease by one per cent.
