The probable loss, therefore, now to be expected, was very
inconsiderable indeed.
There was, however, one circumstance to be added, which the West India
gentlemen, in stating this matter, had entirely overlooked; and which
was so material, as clearly to reduce the probable diminution in the
population of Jamaica down to nothing. In all the calculations he had
referred to of the comparative number of births and deaths, all the
Negroes in the island were included. The newly imported, who died in the
seasoning, made apart; but these swelled, most materially, the number of
the deaths. Now, as these extraordinary deaths would cease, as soon as
the importation ceased, a deduction of them ought to be made from his
present calculation.
But the number of those, who thus died in the seasoning, would make up
of itself nearly the whole of that one per cent. which had been stated.
He particularly pressed an attention to this circumstance; for the
complaint of being likely to want hands in Jamaica, arose from the
mistake of including the present unnatural deaths, caused by the
seasoning, among the natural and perpetual muses of mortality. These
deaths, being erroneously taken into the calculations, gave the planters
an idea that the numbers could not be kept up.
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