Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/176

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CHAP. IV.

Whether the Colonists could carry on the necessary Cultivation of their Lands, without a fresh Importation of slaves while this increase was becoming effective; or, in other Words, while the Generation immediately succeeding these Regulations were growing up to supply the natural Deaths of the Slaves of all Ages, now in their Possession.

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By means of the foregoing Regulations the Watchmen & Drivers might become labourers in the field.

This question may be answered from what has appeared in some of the preceding chapters.

Slaves have been shewn to have been wounded by the watchmen, in stealing provisions to which they have been impelled by hunger; but as, by some of the foregoing regulations, they would be sufficiently fed, (and where they have been sufficiently fed the evidence has shewn that they have not stolen at all) those watchmen would become unnecessary as such, and might be turned into the effective field-gangs.

It has appeared also, that where task-work is introduced the whip is unnecessary: hence the drivers, whose only business is to force labour (and of whom there are four or five, says Coor, to every 100 slaves) might themselves be converted into field-labourers.

It