Nor was this the only salutary step proposed by his excellency during his administration. Although, as before mentioned, the general assembly of the Leeward Islands had, during a meeting at St. Kitts, in 1798, passed the “Melioration Act,” with the hopes of restricting the owners of slaves from excessive cruelty in their dealings with their negroes. No limits had been put to the _number of lashes_ to be given at _one time_, and for _one offence_, and accordingly some maliciously disposed persons had evaded the law, and treated their slaves in a most barbarous manner. The governor had full proof of this soon after his arrival, in the case of a member of the council, at Nevis, who, setting aside the laws of humanity, had caused “300 lashes of cart-whip, or nearly that number, to be inflicted in the public market-place (without the sentence of a magistrate) upon a considerable proportion of a gang of thirty-two negroes, who were all, more or less, severely punished, without having been convicted of any act, which, by the most forced construction, could be deemed mutinous, or dangerous to the community at large.” In the governor’s communications with the Earl of Liverpool, in 1810, upon this subject, he alludes to the “Melioration Act,” and deplores that the punishment of whipping was not restricted to 39 lashes, as in the 14th clause of the “Consolidated Act,” passed in Jamaica, in 1792; and further proposes, that the clause in question should be _immediately annexed_ to the “Leeward Island Melioration Act.” That such was not done upon the passing of the act, cannot be laid to the charge of the representatives of Antigua, who fully coincided with Mr. Burke, the attorney-general of the Leeward Islands, in his proposal that such measure should be adopted, but which proposition was not carried into effect by the general council and assembly.