140
CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
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 attorneygeneral 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. In 1812, this suggestion of his excellency's, limiting the number of lashes to be given in the chastisement of a slave, was fully carried into effect. The Antiguans had had another example brought before them, where a Tortolian slave-master had murdered several of his negroes, in a most shocking manner, and cruelly ill-treated others ; and the Antiguans appear to have been wishful of exterminating that plague-spot cruelty from their little island ! For this reason, they forbad owners, jailors, or any other person who had the superintendence of such inflictions, to give their slaves more than 39 lashes at one time, and for one offence ; nor were they to repeat the punishment within 14 days, under a penalty of 100l. No slave was to receive more than six lashes at one time, for one offence, unless the owner's attorney, manager, or overseer, should be present It is strange, very strange, that so many dreadful deeds should have been practised in Antigua, and still so many laws been