date some 10,000 negroes legally free, and 1400 maroons or escaped slaves
dwelling permanently in the mountain fastnesses. The number of sugar
plantations was 651 in 1768, and 767 in 1791; and they contained about
three-fifths of all the slaves on the island. Throughout this latter part
of the century the average holding on the sugar estates was about 180
slaves of all ages.[7]

[Footnote 7: Edward Long, _History of Jamaica_, I, 494, Bryan Edwards,
_History of the British Colonies in the West Indies_, book II, appendix.]

When the final enumeration of slaves in the British possessions was made
in the eighteen-thirties there were no single Jamaica holdings reported as
large as that of 1598 slaves held by James Blair in Guiana; but occasional
items were of a scale ranging from five to eight hundred each, and hundreds
numbered above one hundred each. In many of these instances the same
persons are listed as possessing several holdings, with Sir Edward Hyde
East particularly notable for the large number of his great squads. The
degree of absenteeism is indicated by the frequency of English nobles,
knights and gentlemen among the large proprietors. Thus the Earl of
Balcarres had 474 slaves; the Earl of Harwood 232; the Earl and Countess of
Airlie 59; Earl Talbot and Lord Shelborne jointly 79; Lord Seaford 70; Lord
Hatherton jointly with Francis Downing, John Benbow and the Right Reverend
H. Philpots, Lord Bishop of Exeter, two holdings of 304 and 236 slaves
each; and the three Gladstones, Thomas, William and Robert 468 slaves
jointly.[8]

[Footnote 8: "Accounts of Slave Compensation Claims," in the British
official _Account: and Papers, 1837-1838_, vol. XLVIII.]

Such an average scale and such a prevalence of absenteeism never prevailed