the price of slaves has varied with the increase or diminution of importation: about seventy years ago, the average number of negroes carried off the coast of Africa for the New World, according to Raynal, was 80,000 per annum, for some years. Edwards, at a period twenty years later, and perhaps with more truth, fixes the number at 20,000 annually; while Anderson raises it to 100,000. I believe in these, as in all other extreme statements, truth may be found to lie between. Edwards admits that 610,000 negroes were imported into Jamaica between 1700 and 1786, and this amount he reckons one-third of the whole number imported during the same interval into other parts of the British Colonies, the whole amount being 2,130,000, for that period. About the same period, namely, from 1702 to 1775, Brydges says half a million were imported into Jamaica, and that the average annual importation was from five to ten thousand; but, in all, he informs us, "50,000 negroes were annually transported beyond the reach of their own tyrants;" he forgot to add, "and were placed within the reach of ours." He admits, however, that the drain upon Africa, to the period of the abolition of the slave-trade, "might have certainly peopled continents, and supplied armies which would have overrun the world." Montgomery Martin estimates the total number of negroes stolen from their country at thirty millions; of that number, I should not think thirty thousand natives of Africa are now in existence in our colonies: of their descendants, both in America and the West Indies, there may be about three millions and a half, of which number there are, in all our colonies, about eight hundred thousand, but in our West Indies, not much above six hundred and fifty thousand. So much for the millions "who might have overrun continents," but who pined and perished in slavery, in order that we Christians might not have to drink tea without sugar, or those who disliked tea, have to breakfast without coffee. Now, for the value of those animal machines, who, "when they stand up, exhibit a human face,-these creatures, in fact, that

are men."

In 1510, King Ferdinand sent out a cargo of negroes, as a private adventure, to his own possessions in Hispaniola; by which speculation his Majesty must have been a considerable gainer, for nearly thirty years later, the first Genoese company, for the sale of slaves, got from fifty to two hundred ducats ahead for Africans.

In 1689, a pamphlet, called "The Groans of the Plantations" has some very valuable information on the subject of the price of negroes at that period. Formerly, (says the writer,) we might send to Guinea for negroes when we wanted them, and they stood us in about £7 a-head. The account is short and plain, for they cost about the value of 40s. a-head in Guinea, and the freight was £5 for every one that was brought alive, and could walk over the ship's side. But now we are shut out from this trade, and a company is forced on us from whom me must have our negroes, and no other way. A company of London merchants has got a patent, excluding all others from furnishing the plantations with negroes, some great men being joined with them, with whom we are not able to contend; but those great men might have had some better exercise for their generosity, than the pressing too hard upon industrious people. And now we buy our negroes at the rate of an engrossed commodity, the common rate of a good negro on ship-board being twenty pounds, and we are forced to scramble for them in so shameful a manner that one of the great burdens of our lives is going to buy negroes. But we must have them, we cannot do without them."

In a manuscript journal of Hampdon Needham, in possession of his grandson, Major General Needham, quoted by Montgomery Martin, the price of negroes in 1750, is thus stated: "Bought ten negroes at £50 each; and, in 1747, the following calculation appears in the Board of Trade papers-500 negroes at £50 each." In 1777, slaves averaged in the West Indies from £25 to £30. In 1791, Edwards says the common price was £50; boys and girls from £40 to £45; an infant

£5. In the intermediate period between 1777 and 1790, the average price was from £35 to £45 currency, on an average of upwards of twenty cargoes, (see Report, Jamaica House of Assembly, 1792.) At this period, the price had advanced from £60 to £70 currency: and Edwards, in his estimate of the expenses of a sugar-plantation, values the negroes at £70, at the period when he wrote on the West Indies. But a very singular difference in the estimated value of convicted and executed negroes appears to have taken place within the last fifty years. I have now before

me the original record of the slave trials of the parish of St. Andrews, from 1746 to 1782, a period of thirtysix years. In this record, I find wherever a negro is sentenced to execution, the court invariably fixes his value at £40. Now, this was in the prosperous times of Jamaica. But in the late rebellion of 1831, I find, to my great astonishment, the value considerably increased of the negro who is ordered to be executed. In 1823, in the Duke of Manchester's time, during Mr. Bullock's administration,-eight negroes were executed for compassing and imagining the death of the white people," (no actual rebellion having taken place against the majesty of that community;) it was one of the many conspiracies of former times: the indemnity in these cases, granted by the court, was £50 for one; £100 each for three others; and £65, £70, £80, and £90, each, for the other four. So that the proprietor, however little he might have desired to have profited by such means, received £605 for his executed slaves, while, for as many living negroes, when the compensation money is paid, he will receive from the British Government probably about £240

This indemnity ought to be abolished; for it is impossible to look on it in any other light than as having the appearance, at least, of a bounty on rebellions-a bonus on negro executions.

The price of slaves in the West Indies, at any time since the commencement of this traffic, never averaged,

for a period of ten years, £55 sterling a-head. So much as £500 currency, has been paid, it is said, for Creole slaves, in Jamaica; but this was for artisans, such as carpenters and coppersmiths, taught these profitable trades in the colony. Altogether, I would say the average price of all the slaves that have been imported into the West Indies may be estimated at about £40 sterling.

In Rome, a learned slave has been sold for a suin equivalent to £833; a stage-player, according to Dickson, for still more; many of the most famous doctors of ancient Rome were slaves; what the physiciaus fetched in the market I do not know, but I should suppose they were more valuable than they are at present in any country. The modern doctors, however, have turned the tables on the community; for now, instead of being sold, they sell the public, at least that part of it that is confided to their care, when they choose to retire from their practice;-ay, literally sell their patients, for a price which may vary from £500 sterling to £2000: and, what is worse, the unfortunate patients, who are thus regularly bought and sold, have no voice in the transfer, but are "led by the nose to the establishments of their new possessors, as tenderly as asses are."

66

I am, my dear Sir,
Yours, very truly,

R. R. M.

The system of management formerly pursued on estates; the mode of disposing of their produce, and of

procuring the supplies; and, lastly, the loans contracted on the calculation of a continuance of extraordinary returns, may be looked upon as the immediate causes of the general depression of West India interests-I may say, of their ruin. I have taken a good deal of pains to inform myself thoroughly on this subject; and the information I have received is from gentlemen commercially and agriculturally connected with West India interests, on whose opinions and statements I have a perfect reliance.

The system formerly pursued, of transacting colonial business, was this:-The merchant, in consideration of the advantages of the sale of the produce of an estate, usually consented to make advances on the returns, and, in course of time, to lend large sums of money on the security of the property. In many cases, he undertook the mercantile management, expressly on the condition of taking up the debts of the proprietor, and becoming a mortgagee, for sums which the estate might have possibly sold at that period, but which now, in a vast number of instances, would hardly fetch the interest, for ten years, on the capital lent.

It is not to be supposed that a merchant will lend large sums of money on a precarious property, without advantages commensurate with the risk he encounters. It is very evident that the mere legal interests of five per cent. would not be a sufficient advantage for the hazard of such advances. I by no means desire to be understood to say, that any undue advantage was taken of the proprietor. The mere commission on the sales-the interest on the loan, were not adequate to the risk and inconvenience of the lender; therefore, the merchant was justified in monopolizing all those advantages which could be obtained from the purchase of supplies, the freighting of his own ships, the underwriting of the same; and it could not be expected that he would beat down his own prices, where there was no bargaining to reduce them. The attorney sent home the list of the supplies; the merchant sent it, perhaps, by his clerk, to the house that the articles were