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A Descriptive Accont of the Island of Jamaica (2)
A Descriptive Accont of the Island of Jamaica - 2 Author:William Beckford Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1790 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a m... more »illion books for free. Excerpt: Their exertions out of crop, are feldom required for more than thirteen hours in the day; and the remainder of the four- and-twenty, the generality of them may confider as their own, and may difpofe of them in any manner agreeable to their inclinations. Happy would it be for them, and for the domeftic comforts of the country, could they be taught, or encouraged to take delight in, any fedentary employments, when they have fo many vacant hours, in the rainy feafons, that might be attended with profit to themfelves, with ufe to their families, or that might confine them, with good-humoured induftry and patient retirement to the pleafing care and fober management of their children, . and thence introduce a domeftic leffon of internal quiet and fubordination, inftead of wandering abroad themfelves from plantation to plantation, making thofe idle and xvorthlefs who naturally look up to them for example and for condudt, and thus F 2 importimport drunkennefs and theft, and a long lift of minor vices that debilitate their con- ftitutions, and lay the foundation of impiety, difeafe, and death. A perfon who has not been ufed to the labour of negroes in our colonies, would be at firft furprifed to obferve in how fhort a fpace of time a good gang of able labourers will get through a piece of flanding canes, particularly if they be ratoons, and thofe be rather fliabby, and which are commonly the firft that are cut at the commencement of the harveft, as they will anfwer full as well as thofe from which more produce is expected, for a trial of the mill, the heating of the coppers, and as a partial experim...« less