The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-01 00:00:00

Blacks (refugees from America and prize t
negroes), free labourers from the Spanish main, t
of mixed race, called Peons, and free Indians.
The first party of the American refugees, fifty. •
seven in number, arrived in the Island in No-
vember, 1815 ; five hundred and seventy-five in
August, 1816 ; seventy-nine in January, 1821.
The prise Negroes, fifty-two African females,
were sent from Barbadoes in 1817, and eleven
more were sent a short time afterwards. • The
principal party came at the commencement of
the rainy season, which induced fluxes and fevers,
of which one hundred cases occurred in the first
three months. These refugees are now 923 in
number, having increased 147 since their first
settlement, though the number of females is
much smaller than that of the males, there being
about 350 male adults, and about 160 women.—,
Now h so happens, that while these free negroes
are increasing in number,the slaves are constantly
fie:Teasing. There is a great anxiety on the
pert of all the witnesses, who are' planters, or de-
-pennant on planters, to . depreciate the character
of the free negroes. Joseph Harregan, Esq. :
" What description of free labourers do. you em-
ploy -Peons to cut down timber, American refu-
gees to saw boards and scantling. Do you {hid
these people behave well, and continue steady at
their work ?—I have no fault to find. with the
Peons ; they work by contract, and I was in no
hurry ; I generally gave them sufficient time,
Living never found them punctual to time.: with
respect to the Americans I cannot say so much;
they are very frequently drunk, work slower than
the Peons, and mix more with the negroes.-
-What objection have you to their mixing with
the negroes ? They entice them to drink, in-
terfere with the wives of the men, which creates
quarrels and disturbances, and I-have dismissed
them in consequence."—Dactor O'Connor: "
Iu
their habits, manners, and apparent condition,
are the free labouring classes much superior to
staves ?—I think the slaves generally better fed
and better clothed ; those of the free labouring
classes who have families suffer from want of
food, and their children are very badly taken care
of; their moral habits and characters are in no
respect superior to slaves ; on the contrary, I
think they are more depraved, being subject to
ago controul
diers, although receiving an allowance from Go-
vernment, are, I believe, amongst the most mi-
serable in the community, and are invariably
given to hard drinking." Other witnesses gave
the same unfavourable account of them. But how
comes it that these free negroes increase and mul-
tiply,while the slaves decrease ? If you believe the
witnesses alluded to,the negroes are treated with the
utmost kindness ; they are better fed than the free
:Pegrocs—their work does not in the least injure •
theta —they are never worked beyond their
atienati- All the advantages; in short, are on
their aide, and all the disadvantages on the 'side
of the free negroes. Yet, somehow, the greater
mortality co;itrives to be on the side of the happy
slaves ! The climate, it is said, is worse for the
negro constitution than that of Barbadoes, where
the slaves increase ; but then the sun shines on
The just as well as the unjust—on the American
refugee as well as on the slave. It is the same
• climate for both descriptions of negroes. 'Then
the neg.oes are very loose, fonder of drinking
rum than of saying their prayers, and equally
fond of debauchery. The females in particular
are described as being so irreclaimably libertine,
as to set all regulations at defiance. The only
moral law they comprehend is that of strong bolts

and bars.
. .
Dr. Williams says—" I can only say that, in my own
family many years elapsed without any of the females hav-
ing children, end within the last three years two of the
same women have commenced breeding, and have had
each of them twins at a birth. 'What are the ages of these
women ?—One of them I believe twenty-aist, and the ether
thirty-two. To what cause do you ascribe the eireum-
stauce of their becoming nm:hers so Tate ?—I can only as
ct ibe it to their previous debauchery and promiscuous in-
tercourse." Mr. Bresaosa—" Do you consider chastity to
be an ordinary virtue among female slaves 2--Not in the
least. Have you any female slave upon your estate who
Tian confined herself invariably to one hnsband?-1 have
some who have lived regularly with the same man, but
who have certainly not been faithful to him during that
'period, Do you not consider it to be the interest of the
master that slaves should be married together, and remain
faithful to each other ?..---Certainly ; I have done all in my
power to promote it, but they have invariably, objected,.and
claim the right of consulting their own inclinations. Did
you ever punish them for changing their wives or hus-
bands ?—I have occasionally punished some of the younger
ones, but it had very little effect ; and the elder generally
allege such plausible reasons for a change, that I have con-
sidered that I should render them miserable by obliging
them to remain together. Whenever I find a man with
tWO wives, I endeavour to persuade him to give.up one ;
but their general customs admit it ; the women themselves
do not object to it; and it so well understood, that they
have a particular appellation for two women living with
the same man ; they call each ether combosse." Do you
t'un think it is impraZ:ticable to cure their ordinary habits
I f licentiousness?--I think it impossible to do it for some

generations.
Then it seems the slaves have another very
singular vice. Mr. Shiel amused himself some ,
time ago very heartily with the prohibition which
ail good Protestants are bound to regard, against
" a man marrying his grandmother." But his
countryman, Dr. James Lynch O'Connor, whose
youth was passed amongst the pure population
of Mayo and Sligo, was astonished to find " the
prevalence among the slaves of the extraordinary
1)
habit of young men cohabiting with old women, •
a cause which, he says, " affects the source of
population." The English Reformers must
have looked prospectively to the establishment
of the Anglican Church among the negroes ;
for, applied to them, the prohibition is not so 1
far out of the way. We suspect this wonder of
Dr. O'Connor, if closely inquired into, will ei-
ther resolve itself into the impossibility of the
young negroes obtaining any other than old wo-
inen (for where polygamy exists, and females are
number than males, all cannot have
fewer 'in
young woolen), or may be traced to the cause
which leads occasionally the young countrymen
of Dr. O'Connor to offer their services to aged
English spinsters. A coloured Venus, who has
passed her youth in the way the witnesses de-
scribe, may possess the means of charming her
young inamorato with rum, which is prized by
the negro still more than love. But then if ne-
groes are so very ill-inclined, their freedom
is not likely to cure them of their naughti-
ness. Accordingly, Mr. Mitchell, who is
placed over the free settlers, and who speaks
favourably of them in many respects, is forced
to own (and as the admission affords a strong
confirmation of the unkind accusation of Pope
that ic every woman is at heart a rake," it justifies
earnestness with which men have applied
themselves to strengthen this vulnerable quarter,
,1,-V a rigid morality, which, by never forgiving a
I IPse, keeps up a constant terror) that the free
fe ;Hake "e
no better than the slaves. "In the
-"t"'" )."11 have given in of the separations
among,t Ole married couples, it appear that in
nine out of ten yes the women have deserted
their husbands ;
your observations, do you
consider the women to be less constant in their
attachments than the en
generally. observed a disinclination
I think. so ; I have
m amongst the
lonales in all the free labouring
classes to marry ;