The professional Planter’s own words well deserve to be inserted: “For I aver it boldly, melancholy experience having given me occasion to make the remark, that a great number of Negroes have perished annually by diseases produced by inanition. To be convinced of this truth, let us trace the effect of that system, which assigned, for a Negro’s weekly allowance, six or seven pints of flour, or grain, with as many salt herrings; and it is in vain to conceal what we all know to be true, that in many of the islands they did not give more. With so scanty a pittance, It is indeed possible for the soul and body to be held together a considerable portion of time, provided a man’s only business be to live, and his spirits be husbanded with a frugal hand; but if motion short of labour, much more labour itself, and that too intense, be exacted from him, how is the body to support itself.”—“Their attempts to wield the hoe prove abortive, they shrink from their toil, and, being urged to perseverance by stripes, you are soon obliged to receive them into the hospital, whence, unless your plan be speedily corrected, they depart but to the grave. It may possibly be urged in palliation of this practice, that in cases of such short allowance as I have mentioned above, Negroes do not depend upon that solely for their subsistence, but that they derive considerable aid from little vacant spots on the estate, which they are allowed to cultivate on their own account. Though frequently otherwise, this may sometimes be the case; yet even there it is to be observed, that such spots, in the low-land plantations, are capable of producing only for a part of the year, either through the drought of the season or the sterility of the soil, and when that happens, the Negro is again at his short allowance; and having no honest means of eking it out, to make it square with the demands of nature, he is compelled to pilfer.”—The writer goes on to state, that the delinquent, extending his thefts, is detected and apprehended, is severely whipped and chained, and confined; but as neither chains nor stripes, nor confinement, can extinguish hunger, he returns, when released, to the same practices, till, partly from the discipline, partly from scanty nourishment, and colds from exposure during his desertion, he, ten to one, falls into a distempered habit, which soon hurries him out of the world. The close is very remarkable, “Now this was set down as a vicious incorrigible subject, and his death is deemed a beneficial release to the estate.” Footnote 23: Vide Privy Council Report—head, Antigua and Barbados—and some following articles. Footnote 24: Vide Captain Wilson’s evidence. Footnote 25: