University of Virginia Library

JANUARY 30.

A man has been tried at Kingston for cruel treatment of a Sambo female slave, called Amey. She dad no friends to support her cause, nor any other evidence tp prove her assertions than the

apparent truth of her statement, and the marks of having been branded in five different places. The result was, that the master received a most severe reprimand for his inhuman conduct, and wassentenced to close confinement for six months ; while the slave, in consequence of her suffereings, was restored to the full enjoyment of her freedom.

It appears to me that nothing could afford so much relief to the negroes, under the existing system, as the substituting the labour of animals for that of slaves in agriculture, wherever such a measure is practicable. On leaving the island I impressed this wish of mine upon the minds of my agents with all my power ; but the result has been the creating of a very considerable additional expense in the purchase of ploughs, oxen, and farming implements : the awkwardness, and still more the obstinancy, of the few negroes whose services were indispensible, was not to be overcome ; they broke plough after plough, and ruined beast after beast, till the attempy was abandoned in despair. However, it was made without the most essential ingrediaent for success—the superintendence of an English ploughman : and such of the ploughs as were cast-iron could not be repaired when once broken, and therefore ought not to have been adopted ; but I am told that in several other parts of the island the plough has been introduced, and completely successful.

Another of my farming speculations answered no better : this was to improve the breed of cattle in the country, for which purpose Lord Holland and myself sent over four of the finest bulls that could be procurredin England. One of them got a trifling hurt in his passage from the vessel to the land ; but the remaining three were deposited in their respective pens without the least apparent damage. They were taken all possible care of—houses approriated to shelter them from sun and rain— and, in short, no means of preserving their health was neglected. Yet, shortly after their arrival in Jamaica, they evidently began to decline; they paid no sort of attention to the cows who were confined in the same paddock ; and at the end of a fortnight they were all dead. The injured one, having been bled the most copiously in consequence of his hurt, was that which survived the longest.