JANUARY 30.
A man has been tried, at Kingston, for cruel treatment of a Sambo female slave, called Amey. She had no friends to support her cause, nor any other evidence to prove her assertions, than the apparent truth of her statement, and the marks of having been branded in five different places. The result was, that the master received a most severe reprimand for his inhuman conduct, and was sentenced to close confinement for six months, while the slave, in consequence of her sufferings, was restored to the full enjoyment of her freedom.
It appears to me that nothing could afford so much relief to the negroes, under the existing system of Jamaica, as the substituting the labour of animals for that of slaves in agriculture, whereever such a measure is practicable. On leaving the island, I impressed this wish of mine upon the minds of my agents with all my power; but the only result has been the creating a very considerable additional expense in the purchase of ploughs, oxen, and farming implements; the awkwardness, and still more the obstinacy, of the few negroes, whose services were indispensable, was not to be overcome: they broke plough after plough, and ruined beast after beast, till the attempt was abandoned in despair. However, it was made without the most essential ingredient for success, the superintendence of an English ploughman; and such of the ploughs as were of cast-iron could not be repaired when once broken, and therefore ought not to have been adopted; but I am told, that in several other parts of the island the plough has been introduced, and completely successful. Another of my farming speculations answered no better: this was to improve the breed of cattle in the county, for which purpose Lord Holland and myself sent over four of the finest bulls that could be procured in England. One of them got a trifling hurt in its passage from the vessel to land; but the remaining three were deposited in their respective pens without the least apparent damage. They were taken all possible care of, houses appropriated to shelter them from the sun and rain, and, in short, no means of preserving their health was neglected. Yet, shortly after their arrival in Jamaica, they evidently began to decline; their blood was converted into urine; they paid no sort of attention to the cows, who were confined in the same paddock; and at the end of a fortnight not one was in existence, two having died upon the same day. The injured one, having been bled the most copiously in consequence of its hurt, was that which survived the longest.