In the French islands, likewise, the religious instruction of the Slaves was an object of very general care; and the intelligent West Indian Writer before alluded to, frankly declares, “that no person who has visited the French islands can deny, that in consequence of the improvements derived from this source, their Slaves are incomparably better disposed than our own.” This is no singular opinion, and the Governor of Dominica stated an undeniable truth, when, in answer to the queries sent out by his Majesty, he declared, that “he was satisfied it was principally from this cause (of religious instruction), that the French Slaves were, in general, better, more attached, more contented, more healthy, more cleanly than ours.” Their greater attachment and contentment are the more worthy of remark, because it is pretty generally agreed, that they were treated with more severity, and worked harder than our own. In the Portuguese settlements also, and probably in the Spanish likewise, the religious instruction of the Slaves has ever been regarded as a concern of high importance. Might we not then have expected that our own West Indian Proprietors would be prompted, not only by considerations of self-interest, but by motives of a still higher order, to pay some attention to the religious instruction of their Negroes? Might not mere humanity have enforced the same important duty? Might we not have hoped, that the Slaves of this Protestant and free nation, might have had some compensation made to them, for the evils of their temporal bondage, by a prospect being opened to them of a happier world hereafter, a world of light and liberty? But, alas! no such cheering prospects are pointed out to them. It is left, alas! to Paganism to administer to them, I had almost said happily, a faint imitation of that more animating hope which Christianity should impart; and these poor beings are comforted by the idea, that death will once more restore them to their native land; on which account it is, that, as we learn from most respectable testimony, the negro funerals in the West Indies are seasons of joy and triumph, whereas in Africa, they are accompanied with the usual indications of dejection and sorrow.[24] [Sidenote: Degradation of the Negro race.] But though this neglect of the religious and moral instruction of the Slaves, so manifestly leading to the master’s immediate interest, may surprize on the first view, the problem will be completely solved on a farther insight into the system of management; and the mischief may be traced, if I mistake not, to a sure source of numerous and most malignant evils. [Sidenote: Degradation of the Negro race.] For the various moral defects of the negro system appear to me often to be almost entirely caused, and always to be extremely augmented, by the Negroes, as a race, being sunk into the lowest state of degradation.