special instance.

A question which was discussed in the real sense of the term, was that of
ploughing the land instead of having it turned with the spade or hoe. I
listened to this with great interest, for Jack and I had had some talk
upon this subject, which began in his ardently expressed wish that massa
would allow his land to be ploughed, and his despairing conclusion that he
never would, ''cause horses more costly to keep than coloured folks,' and
ploughing, therefore, dearer than hoeing or digging. I had ventured to
suggest to Mr. ----- the possibility of ploughing some of the fields on
the island, and his reply was that the whole land was too moist and too
much interrupted with the huge masses of the Cypress yam roots, which
would turn the share of any plough. Yet there is land belonging to our
neighbour Mr. G----, on the other side of the river, where the conditions
of the soil must be precisely the same, and yet which is being ploughed
before our faces. On Mr. ----'s adjacent plantation the plough is also
used extensively and successfully.

On my return to our own island I visited another of the hospitals, and the
settlements to which it belonged. The condition of these places and of
their inhabitants is, of course, the same all over the plantation, and if
I were to describe them I should but weary you with a repetition of
identical phenomena: filthy, wretched, almost naked, always bare-legged
and bare-footed children; negligent, ignorant, wretched mothers, whose
apparent indifference to the plight of their offspring, and utter
incapacity to alter it, are the inevitable result of their slavery. It is
hopeless to attempt to reform their habits or improve their condition
while the women are condemned to field labour; nor is it possible to
overestimate the bad moral effect of the system as regards the women
entailing this enforced separation from their children and neglect of all