]
3. The following evidence was adduced by Pitt in the British Parliament,
April, 1792. The assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, "that though
the negroes were allowed only the afternoon of one day in a week, they
would do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their own
benefit, as in the whole day when employed in their master's service."
"Now after this confession," said Mr. Pitt, "the house might burn all its
calculations relative to the negro population. A negro, if he worked for
himself, could no doubt do double work. By an improvement, then, in the
mode of labor, the work in the islands could be doubled."
4. "In coffee districts it is usual for the master to hire his people
after they have done the regular task for the day, at a rate varying from
10d. to 15.8d. for every extra bushel which they pluck from the trees;
and many, almost all, are found eager to earn their wages."
5. In a report made by the commandant of Castries for the government of
St. Lucia, in 1822, it is stated, in proof of the intimacy between the
slaves and the free blacks, that "many small plantations of the latter,
and occupied by only one man and his wife, are better cultivated and have
more land in cultivation than those of the proprietors of many slaves,
and that the labor on them is performed by runaway slaves;" thus clearly
proving that even runaway slaves, under the all-depressing fears of
discovery and oppression, labor well, because the fruits of their labor
are immediately their own.
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