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calculation to four years, treating his slaves most cruelly, and saying that four years labour of a negro was enough for him; for that he then had his pennyworth out of him, and he did not care what became of him afterwards.
As this notion is so fatal to population, and is indeed evidently one grand source from whence the present evils in the colonial system spring, it will be proper to examine the evidence, to see if we cannot shew the reverse of it to be true.
There is one circumstance that leads us strongly to suspect that it is not so well founded as its general prevalence should warrant, which is, that one-third of all that are bought die in the seasoning. This seasoning is not a distemper, but is the time an African takes to be so habituated to the colonial labour, as to be counted an effective supply.
Some Planters, says Woolrich, who have bought lots of slaves, have informed him, that they have lost one-third of them or more in the first year of their seasoning.
Mr. Terry states, that very considerable losses were common among the newly imported Africans. One-third die within the first year. Of a lot of six, bought by himself, two died within the first year, and at the end of five years two only survived.
Mr. Forster recollects a planter, who bought thirty new negroes, and lost them all within the year.
Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the last four years he was in Jamaica, bought ninety-five new negroes. At the end of that time, he sold fifty-two, all that were then alive, and those not seasoned. Had he kept them till seasoned, he should have lost more, and for this very reason he sold them. He thinks, on an average, at least one-third of the new negroes imported, die in the first three years.
