VII. Men not to be fubftitut For, to ed for cattle. 131. I know not what fome of my readers may think, but CHA P. to me, it appears a ferious violation of natural law to force, or even to allure, men and women to drudge in any kind of hard labour that can be performed by cattle. what purpose hath the Creator endowed certain animals with ftrength, patience and docility, and made them obedient to the will of man, unless they are to affist him in his labours, and to partake of the harveft? To partake, I say, of the harvest, and to be treated with a consideration proportioned to their fervices, and to their various degrees of feeling, which generally correfpond with their different portions of intellect. We are ever to remember, that, of all the external gifts of God, the most valuable is the service of labouring animals, over which he hath not granted us an abfolute, but an evidently limited, dominion, for the exercise of which we are accountable to him*. If fo; it follows, a fortiori, that he hath not given men abfolute dominion over one another. "Man over men he made not lord; fuch title to himself reserving t." Having then, ftrictly speaking, no abfolute dominion over brutes, and fill lefs over one another, we never can have a right, either by force or fraud, to make our fellow creatures perform the tasks of labouring cattle, tasks for which God and nature have not fitted them, and which in certain disorderly hordes across the Atlantic, have destroyed more human lives than ever did war, pestilence or famine, in any other country. 132. Without entering into the minutiae of cultivation, I The ufe of shall only endeavour to point out the neceffity of introduc- the plough * See Dr. Primatt's Effay on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals alfo the Adventurer, No. 37. + Milton. recommend. ed. VII. CHAP. ing the labour of cattle and the use of the plough, if poffible, at the very commencement of a new colony. It is not only the quickest and cheapest mode of cultivation; but is preferable in every other refpect, to the flow and flavish method of forcing men and women to dig up the ground with hand-hoes, and to carry out the dung in baskets, as generally practifed in the fugar islands, and in some parts of the American continent. This practice is evidently incompatible with the health and comfort of free labourers in a hot climate, and indeed in any climate; for I believe the hand-hoeing of all the land which is now ploughed throughout Europe, would be found intolerably oppreffive to the peasantry, even in these temperate or cold climates. Objections to the plough anfwered. 133. In converfing with many of the West Indians, a little attention will discover that one grand, though tacit, reason for their preferring hand-hoeing to the plough is, That it has hitherto been their cuftom. This happens to be just fuch a reafon as men wedded to ancient prejudices, conftantly give for continuing their errors; and of all men, the cultivators of the earth, from their scattered fituation, are obferved to adhere the most obftinately to their ancient practices. Montefquieu remarks that the Turks still employ no other machinery, in their mines, than the arms of their flaves; while they daily fee their neighbours, the Hungarians, who have no flaves, abridge their own labour, and fave much expense, by the use of machinery. For, fo infatuating is the practice of flavery, that the masters cannot fee that the labour of flaves which, to vulgar eyes, appears the cheapeft, is in truth incomparably the dearest of all labour *. * This has been fatisfactorily proved by Dr. Franklin in his Thoughts on the peopling of Countries, by Montefquieu in the Spirit of Laws, and by Dr. Smith in Wealth of Nations, Vol. I. p. 122, and Vol. III. p. 38, edit. 5. 134. But VII. 134. But the West Indians make two objections to CHA P. the plough which are worthy of more serious answers. "In the old fmall iflands, many eftates are too contracted to afford pasturage, and their cattle and horses have hitherto been fed with grafs and weeds which the slaves are forced to "6 pick" when they should be taking reft. This fcanty mode of feeding, gives the cattle barely strength to crawl to the shipping places with the produce; but would never sustain them under the labour of ploughing."-I acknowledge the force of this objection, as far as it goes; but it affects only the old, small islands, and only the smaller estates in those islands, and even in these it might be, in most cases, as in fome it already is, removed by the culture of Guinea grass, Guinea corn and other provender. This objection, however, applies not to Jamaica, and the Ceded iflands, nor even to the larger eftates on the old small islands.-Another objection is, that "some eftates, or rather some fields (for it is scarcely true of any whole fugar eftate) are too steep or too rocky to admit of the plough."-But this cannot be urged against ploughing land that is not too fteep and too rocky, and fuch is far the greater part of the cane-land in the fugar colonies. For few fugar works, comparatively, were fixed on lands obstructed with rocks and precipices, and the rash builders of most works that were erected on such spots, have been obliged to give up the culture of fugar for that of cotton, coffee, &c. and, in some cases, have abandoned their works altogether. On the whole then, it will be found that the objections against the plough apply to but a small portion of the West Indian colonies collectivly taken; and it will be the fault of the undertakers of new colonies in Africa, if in a country containing fuch immenfe variety of surface, they make choice of a fituation where they cannot have the ad VII. CHA P. vantage of the labour of cattle, in drawing ploughs and other implements of agriculture. Has been used in the 135. If it be asked, Why the first colonifts of the Weft Indian iflands, did not use the plough, as they had been ac customed to do, in their respective mother-countries? I anfwer, that they had, at first, neither pasturage nor cattle, and that, even if they had been provided with both, the roots of the trees were fo very tough and hard, in some of the iflands, that no plough could have gone among them. What little strength they had, they were obliged to employ, not in grubbing up roots, but in planting among them for an immediate subsistence. No inftrument was fo well adapted for this purpose as the hoe, and the hoe having been once ufed, the introduction of flavery, which foon after took place, did the reft. For when flavery begins, improvement ends; and fociety, if a collection of mafters and flaves deferve that respectable name, sinks into a torpid state of flagnation is congenial to flavery, which cramps the powers of invention, and, by deftroying emulation and reward, arrefts the progrefs of every useful art*. 136. Yet fome individual Weft Indians, nobly bursting fuccefsfully the bonds impofed on them by vulgar prejudice and the West Indies. practice of flavery, have happily precluded all speculative arguments in favour of the plough, by the fuccefsful use of it. It has been found, in Jamaica, that " one plough turned up as much ground in a day, and in a much better manner, than one hundred negroes could perform with their hoes, in the fame time;" and that "the canes planted on the ploughed land turned out near three hogsheads of fugar See Smith's Wealth of Nations, Vol. III. p. 37. per VII. ufed there. per acre, which was one hogshead per acre more than it had CHA P. been used to yield from the common method of culture*." 137. But, if the plough has been used, in some cafes, so Why not uadvantageously, in the West Indies, it will no doubt be afk-niverfally ed, why it is not there used univerfally? This is a very fair question, and the volumes just quoted furnish a very fatisfactory answer to it. "In fome places, where ploughs have been tried and laid by again, experience, judgement and practical knowledge, were not always affifting in the operations t." "I am convinced," fays Lieut. General Matthew, Governor of Grenada, "that experiments have not had fufficient or fair trial, from the want of proper implements, fuitable to the different foils and fituations, and from the want of intelligent labourers. This matter has been given up on flight investigation ‡." 138. To account for the "flight inveftigation" of fo important a matter, will require a few words of explanation. -The proprietors of the Weft Indian iflands, like thofe of most other countries, are either independent, or involved in debt. The latter, though chiefly refident on their plantations, are unable to afford the expenfe neceffary for the first introduction of all improvements; and their creditors, *Long's Hiftory of Jamaica, Vol. I. p. 449 where the ufe of the plough is recommended by irrefiftible reafoning, and by facts ftill more irrefiftible.-See alfo Edwards's Hiftory of Jamaica, Vol. II. p. 213. Mr. E. likewife writes from his own experience. See farther, the Evidence of Sir George Young, the two Mr. Woodwards, Mr. Fitzmaurice, &c, in the Minutes of Evidence on the flave trade before the House of Commons-alfo various pieces of evidence in the answers to the 42d, 46th, and 47th, queries in the Privy Council's Report and the fupplement. + Answer by a planter of 1068 acres in Barbadoes, in the supplement to the Privy Council's Report, p. 32. Privy Council's Report Part. III. Article "Grenada and St. Chriftophers," aufwer to query 42d. |