during nearly the same period, viz. from 1816 to 1821 inclusive. The average of the population of this class for those years was 11,061.* The annual average mortality during the same six years was 295, being one in 37 or 38, or about 23 per cent.

On nearly the same number of slaves, however, in the district of Port Louis, the annual rate of mortality was 1094, being little less than four times that of the free population of the colony. And supposing the same rate of mortality to extend over the whole slave population of the island, we shall have, as the result, not less than about 7000 deaths annually, or about 126,000 deaths in the 18 years we have possessed the island; a mortality nearly equal to killing off the whole of the slaves existing at any one time twice told; a number equal to which must have been supplied by means of importations, and by the consequent accumulation of the well-known atrocities from which alone such importations could be obtained.

A farther proof of the dreadful extent of the mortality prevailing among the slaves in this colony, may be drawn from the case of the estate of Bel Ombre, belonging to Mr. Telfair, the private Secretary of Sir Robert Farquhar, and the humane treatment of the slaves on which estate Sir Robert, who was himself a constant visiter upon it, highly extolled in the House of Commons, representing it as a pattern for good management, and one of the best regulated in the island. Now, even on this well regulated estate, the decrease appears, from authentic documents, to have amounted annually to about 12 per cent. The return for 1819 gives 64 deaths and 12 births on a population of 378, being an actual decrease of 52, or 133 per cent.; and the return of 1825 gives 55 deaths and 16 births on a population of 372, being an actual decrease of 39, or 10 per cent.; or, on an average of the two periods, a decrease of 12 per cent. The mortality in the first year was as high as 17 per cent., and in the second as high as 15 per cent., being an average of 16 per cent.

Now if this was the mortality on one of the best regulated estates, what must it have been throughout the whole island? And what must have been the continued extent of importations indispensably required to maintain, as has been done in the face of this decrease, a population numerically almost undiminished? But even if we were to deduct from this fair but frightful estimate a fourth, or a third, or even a half, enough will remain to prove the terrible effects of that system of coercion and privation, by which the slaves are in this colony worked and starved to death; and the unspeakable atrocity of those wholesale murders which this country continues to tolerate, but which no man, who has not the heart of a demon, can even think of without emotions of indignation and horror.

And it was in the face of many of these facts, then accumulated at the Colonial office; and in despite of the loudest protestations and remonstrances, on the part of those who believed but were not then in a capacity absolutely to prove the enormities since brought to light, that

*See Papers of March 4, 1823, No. 89, p. 127.
+ Papers of May 1, 1827, No. 285, pp. 34 to 39.

Government proposed, and Parliament consented, to give, by fiscal encouragement and protection, an increased impulse to the cruel and sanguinary cupidity of the planters, or rather pirates of the Mauritius. Is not this a national crime of the very deepest dye?

The whole community have of late had their feelings violently and universally excited by a series of acts of cold, calculating, deliberate, bloodyminded ferocity, which have been judicially brought to light at Edinburgh; and no man, who has a single spark of humanity in his frame, can view them in all their dimensions of iniquity without a thrill of horror. But if, even to these appalling discoveries, we were to add the deeds of Corder and Thurtell, and of the murderers of Marr and Williamson, combining with them all the murders which, during the last twenty years, have called down the vengeance of British law on their perpetrators; we doubt whether this collective mass of crime would be found greater than the regular, business-like, daily march, for a like period, of that system, which on many estates as well-ordered as Bel Ombre, steadily proceeds, for ends equally sordid, in so torturing and murdering, inch by inch, the cultivators of their soil, as that one in ten shall be regularly slaughtered, every year, to, glut the cupidity of their savage owners. Wherein do the unflinching and resolute administrators of such a system morally differ from the smooth-tongued and remorseless villain who, in Edinburgh, is now about to suffer the penalty of the law? They differ only as it appears to us in the deeper malignity, and more heartless barbarity of their conduct. And yet under all the circumstances of the case, are not their crimes ours? Are we not partakers in their guilt?

But it is time to come to particulars. We have dwelt hitherto in generals. Our first illustration shall be taken from the estate already mentioned-Bel Ombre. We have now before us some lengthened details respecting Mauritius slavery in general, and this plantation in particular, of which we shall merely give the outline. The period to which they refer is the years 1821 and 1822.

General Treatment of Slaves in the Mauritius.

Over night his food was usually delivered out to each slave for the following day. It commonly consisted of three pieces of baked manioc (cassada) of the size and appearance of muffins, and which in the Mauritius go by the name of "Manioc Cakes." This food is described not only as unpalatable, and also unsatisfying in its nature, but as extremely insufficient in quantity, more especially when the continuity and intensity of the labour exacted from the slaves is considered; the day's allowance being often barely enough for a single good meal. It was prepared beforehand in order to save the time which it would require to prepare it if it were given to the slaves in its raw state, and because it became less necessary to allow them a cessation of labour in order to their eating it. It might be eaten while they continued at work. This wretched and scanty aliment was eked out by drinking large quantities of water, which distended their stomachs; and by eagerly devouring, at the risk of punishment, every species of disgusting offal and carrion which came in their way, and

It was sometimes given out for several days; and sometimes a few watery potatoes of the Island were substituted, which were still less nourishing.

it was considered as the fruitful source, combined with their hard labour, of those dysenteries which were constantly sweeping so many of them into a premature grave.

The daily labour exacted from them extended to from sixteen to nineteen hours in the day, even out of crop. No time was allowed them for breakfast, the eating of a manioc cake requiring no respite from work. For dinner the slaves had nominally two hours allowed them, but in this time they had to cut a bundle of grass or wood for the master, which, on leaving off work at night, they had to deliver at his house.

This wood or grass was frequently difficult to be obtained, and a large proportion of the two hours was, therefore, often spent in obtaining it, so that the period of repose was liable to be abridged by half an hour, or even an hour or more.

On most estates the slaves were summoned to their work, in the morning, by the cracking of the drivers' whips, but on some of the larger estates they were previously roused by a great bell. On Bel Ombre estate the bell was generally rung at three in the morning, sometimes earlier, but seldom later, and they continued to work, without any interval for breakfast, and with only the interval already described for dinner, until so late in the evening as eight o'clock, and, on light nights, even an hour or two later.

While the slaves were at work, they were followed by drivers, and were continually receiving blows and lashes, and were even occasionally taken out from the line and punished with twenty or thirty lashes, and then sent back to work. But these occasional inflictions were scarcely regarded in the light of punishment, but merely of discipline. The regular punishments were reserved, on Bel Ombre, (a practice however, differing from that of many other estates,) for Sunday, a day which, there, never failed to be ushered in with severe floggings. The offenders of the week were reserved in chains (in which they were made to work) for that day; and they were often numerous, generally about thirty, and amounting, on one occasion, to about fifty.

There was no difference in the way of punishing male and female slaves; but there were two different modes resorted to, of punishing both. One was by erecting a frame-work of three poles in a triangular form with a bar across, and fastening the hands of the sufferer, by a rope, to the place where the three poles were united, his or her body resting against the cross bar. The other was by placing the sufferer prone on the face on the ground, or on a ladder, his or her hands, if on the ground, being held extended by four other slaves, or firmly fastened to the ladder, as the case might be. Being thus placed, and the body being bared, the sufferer was flogged on the posteriors, either by one driver, or, in cases deemed more heinous, by two, one stationed on each side. And if the driver failed in inflicting the punishment to the satisfaction of the master, he was liable himself to be made to change places with the offender. The instrument with which the punishment of flogging was inflicted consisted either of a whip, or of the split rattan; and opinions greatly differ, as to which of these was the most cruel. The whip varied in size. fts handle was of wood, from two to three feet

* On some estates the practice differed on this point.

in length, and from an inch and a half to two inches in diameter; and the thong was from six to eight feet in length, and, at the thickest part, from one and a half to two and a half inches in diameter, tapering towards the lash or cutting part. The rattan was a cane of about five feet long, split into two or three parts from one extremity to within a foot or eighteen inches of the other; the unsplit part serving as a handle, and the rest forming a tremendously powerful cat of two or three tails. Either instrument would make incisions into the flesh, and lacerate it at every blow; and the sharp edge of the split rattan would sometimes divide the flesh like a knife. Military floggings, numbers of soldiers testified, were nothing to these. The whip was sometimes a very ponderous instrument; one was seen on Bel Ombre weighing upwards of seven pounds.*

There appeared, in practice, to be no limit to the number of lashes inflicted on offenders but the discretion of the master or manager. Seldom less than fifty, and often a hundred or many more lashes, were given in the way of regular punishment; and by this extent of infliction, the parts, generally the posteriors, were always reduced to one bloody mass of lacerated flesh; and to this was often added the further excruciating torture of the application of lime juice, or salt and pepper, on the pretence of keeping the wounds from festering. The punishment of a collar and chain was often superadded, and also of confinement in the stocks, for an indefinite period, during the intervals of labour, as well as during the night. The collar was rivetted on, and with the chain often worn for months. The use of the collar and chain was so common that it ceased to excite observation, except when the collar was adorned, as it often was, with three or four projecting prongs, the object of which was to render it difficult for the bearer to make his way, in case of absconding, either through the cane pieces, or through the bushes or woods which cover the uncultivated parts of the island. A further effect of these prongs was to render it impossible for the wearer to extend himself at full length, on the ground, for the purpose of repose. The slaves so chained were for the most part confined in the stocks at night. Sometimes a heavy weight was attached to the chain, and sometimes they were chained two and three together. All these various punishments might be inflicted, at the sole will of the master or manager, on men, women, and children alike, for any offence he might choose to deem deserving of it. But the most usual occasions of the heavier punishments were either the thefts, to which the slaves were driven by hunger, or the flight into the woods, to which they were driven by the excess of labour, or the dread of anticipated punishment. As to clothing, the field slaves in general had very little,† the men none beyond a band round the waist, and the women very little more, except what they sometimes obtained by prostitution; the drivers and headmen alone formed an exception.--They had no bedding, not even a mat given them, much less a rug or a blanket, to repose upon at night. They commonly lay down to sleep on the bare and often wet ground. Their huts were usually of the meanest and most miserable

• The model of a moderate Mauritius whip may be seen at the office. The most we hear of was two yards of very coarse calico in the year.

description, pervious to the weather, and so small as scarcely to afford space for the seven or eight human beings, who were frequently crowded into each, to extend themselves at full length on the floor.

In the time of crop the slaves retired from the field somewhat earlier than at other times, in order to take their turn of labour during the night in the manufacture of sugar. If they fell asleep during their spell of night labour, they were liable to be severely flogged; but sometimes, so irresistible was their drowsiness, that their hands were apt to be drawn into the mill along with the canes, and completely crushed and mangled.*

Marriage was unknown among the slaves; but the most open prostitution prevailed universally among the females. Ladies, so called, often hired out their negresses to the soldiers, by the month, for this purpose.

The slaves were generally excluded from all moral or religious instruction; and to teach plantation slaves to read was almost unexampled. Indeed, this might be said of the whole slave population.+

Cases of Cruelty.

The above account would apply, with slight occasional variations, to the estates in general throughout the island, as well as to Bel Ombre. On some the slaves might be better off in one or more particulars, and on some they might be worse off. But the sketch now given may be considered as a fair representation of what was the ordinary, every-day, treatment of the slaves, on those estates which Sir R. Farquhar might designate as well regulated. This treatment, however, was wholly independent of those more exemplary inflictions of punishment which occurred from time to time, and which, though not productive of so great an aggregate of misery as flowed from the calm, steady, regular, course of plantation discipline, yet concentrated into a brief and narrow space a greater portion of the more revolting horrors of the system.

We will here again take Bel Ombre as our first and one of our most striking illustrations. An eye witness, who resided on that estate for six months, saw, in the month of July, 1821, a Mosambique negro brought out and placed flat on his face for punishment. The person continued to look on the process until 150 lashes had been inflicted, and then, unable any longer to endure the horrors of the scene, quitted the place without having ascertained how much farther the punishment was carried.

The same person was also an eye witness of the punishment on this

It is a curious confirmation of this statement, that in the list of the slaves at Bel Ombre, for the year 1819, printed by the House of Commons, on the 1st of May, 1827, No. 285, we find three of the slaves described as "estropiés des deux mains," "mutilated in both hands."

And yet, will it be credited, that Sir Robert Farquhar, in a letter to Earl Bathurst, dated the 12th October, 1813, thus wrote: "Some paragraphs published in The Government Gazette,' without the sanction of Government, harmless as they may appear in Europe, were the cause of infinite apprehension and alarm in this island. They were considered by the slaves (the better informed part of whom can read, and eagerly devour every thing touching their own state and condition) as a declaration of Government of their approaching liberation from all duty to their masters." The paragraphs were indeed of the most innoxious kind; and Sir Robert might therefore, without any risk to the Colony, have spared the discredit of this further misstatement. No. 296 of 1826. p. 25.