Every subject, as long as he behaves well, has a right to the protection of government; and the tacit permission of such a scene of iniquity, when it becomes known, is as much a breach of duty in government, as the conduct of those subjects, who, on other occasions, would be termed, and punished as, rebellious.] [Footnote 099: The expences of every parish are defrayed by a poll-tax on negroes, to save which they pretend to liberate those who are past labour; but they still keep them employed in repairing fences, or in doing some trifling work on a scanty allowance.

For to free a _field-negroe_, so long as he can work, is a maxim, which, notwithstanding the numerous boasted manumissions, no master _ever thinks of adopting_ in the colonies.] [Footnote 100: They must be cultivated always on a _Sunday_, and frequently in those hours which should be appropriated to _sleep_, or the wretched possessors must be inevitably _starved_.] [Footnote 101: They are allowed in general three holy-days at Christmas, but in Jamaica they have two also at Easter, and two at Whitsuntide: so that on the largest scale, they have only seven days in a year, or one day in fifty-two.

But this is on a supposition, that the receivers do not break in upon the afternoons, which they are frequently too apt to do.

If it should be said that Sunday is an holy-day, it is not true; it is so far an holy-day, that they do not work for their masters; but such an holy-day, that if they do not employ it in the cultivation of their little spots, they must _starved_.] [Footnote 102: These dances are usually in the middle of the night; and so desirous are these unfortunate people of obtaining but a joyful hour, that they not only often give up their sleep, but add to the labours of the day, by going several miles to obtain it.] [Footnote 103: Bishop of Glocester's sermon, preached before the society for the propagation of the gospel, at the anniversary meeting, on the 21st of February, 1766.] [Footnote 104: There is a law, (but let the reader remark, that it prevails but in _one_ of the colonies), against mutilation.

It took its rise from the frequency of the inhuman practice.