his, the reader will recollect, is the voluntary
testimony of Thomas Clay, Esq., the Georgia planter, whose testimony
is given above. When this is the case, the amount of actual nutriment
contained in a peck of the "gourd seed," may not be more than in five,
or four, or even three quarts of "flint corn."

As a quart of southern corn weighs at least five ounces less than a
quart of northern corn, it requires little arithmetic to perceive,
that the daily allowance of the slave fed upon that kind of corn,
would contain about one third of a pound less nutriment than though
his daily ration were the same quantity of northern corn, which would
amount, in a year, to more than a hundred and twenty pounds of human
sustenance! which would furnish the slave with his full allowance of a
peck of corn a week for two months! It is unnecessary to add, that
this difference in the weight of the two kinds of corn, is an item too
important to be overlooked. As one quart of the southern corn weighs
one pound and eleven-sixteenths of a pound, it follows that it would
be about one pound and six-eighths of a pound. We now solicit the
attention of the reader to the following unanimous testimony, of the
civilized world, to the utter insufficiency of this amount of food to
sustain human beings under labor. This testimony is to be found in the
laws of all civilized nations, which regulate the rations of soldiers
and sailors, disbursements made by governments for the support of
citizens in times of public calamity, the allowance to convicts in
prisons, &c. We will begin with the United States.

The daily ration for each United States soldier, established by act of
Congress, May 30, 1796. was the following: one pound of beef, one
pound of bread, half a gill of spirits; and at the rate of one quart
of salt, two quarts of vinegar, two pounds of soap, and one pound of
candles to every hundred rations. To those soldiers "who were on the
frontiers," (where the labor and exposure were greater,) the ration
was one pound two ounces of beef and one pound two ounces of bread.
Laws U.S. vol. 3d, sec. 10, p. 431.

After an experiment of two years, the preceding ration being found
_insufficient_, it was increased, by act of Congress, July 16, 1798,
and was as follows: beef one pound and a quarter, bread one pound two
ounces; salt two quarts, vinegar four quarts, soap four pounds, and
candles one and a half pounds to the hundred rations. The preceding
allowanc