To exhibit instances of particular cruelties towards slaves in the exercise of the master's power of punishment, was no part of my plan in this work, or any other of my publications on slavery. I have declined such topics in general; but not because I deem them either improper or useless. They are fairly illustrative of that odious branch of the system, which commits to every master and his delegates, powers which ought to be intrusted only to the civil magistrate; and subjects the slaves for every domestic offence, real or imputed, to punishments more ignominious and severe than are here inflicted for any but felonious crimes.

To doubt the very frequent and cruel abuse of such powers, would be to question whether human nature retains its ordinary frailty and peccability in the West Indies; or is not exempted from all its bad passions, by the mere habit of governing slaves. But I have, therefore, thought that the multitudinous sufferings and crimes necessarily flowing from this source, though examples of them have, perhaps, the most powerful influence on the feelings of the British people at large, might be safely left to the reflections of intelligent and reasoning minds, to which, exclusively, I have wished to address myself in these volumes; and I have consequently stated or noticed such particular fruits of the system as I have delineated, only when they served to support or elucidate some abstract reasoning, or some general remark.