tham
to the Committees of Privy-council and House of Commons, "Let it be
considered, how much labour is lost by the persons overseeing the forced
labourer, which is saved when he works for his own profit;" and,
notwithstanding all the vigilance and whipping of these drivers, I have
proved that the slaves do more for themselves in an afternoon, than in a
whole day when they work for their masters. It was doubtless the
conviction that _forced labour was unprofitable_, as well as that there
would be less of human suffering, which made Mr. Steele take away the
whips from his drivers, as _the very first step necessary_ in his
improved system, or as the _sine qua non_ without which such a system
could not properly be begun; and did not this very measure _alter the
face of his affairs in point of profit in three years after it had been
put into operation_? And here it must be observed, that, if ever
emancipation should be begun by our planters, this must be (however they
may dislike to part with arbitrary power) as much a first step with them
as it was with Mr. Steele. _Forced labour_ stands at the head of the
catalogue of those nuisances belonging to slavery, which oppose the
planter's gain. It must be removed before any thing else can be done.
See what mischiefs it leads to, independently of its want of profit. It
is impossible that forced labour can be kept up from day to day without
injury to the constitution of the slaves; and if their health is
injured, the property of their masters must be injured also. Forced
labour, again, sends many of them to the sick-houses. Here is, at any
rate, a loss of their working time. But it drives them also occasionally
to run away, and sometimes to destroy themselves. Here again is a loss
of their working time and of property into the bargain. _Forced labour_,
then, is one of those striking parts in the West Indian husbandry, in
which we see a _constant source of loss_ to those who adopt it; and may
we not speak, and yet with truth, as unfavourably of some of the other
striking parts in the same system? What shall we say, first, to that
injurious disproportion of the articles of croppage with the wants of
the estates, which makes little or no provision of food for the
labourers (_the very first to be cared for_), but leaves these to be fed
by articles to be bought three thousand miles off in another country,
let the markets there be ever so high, or the prices ever so
unfavourable, at the