1788-1791, at the same rate, we obtain, as the
total number retained in that period................. 43,000
-------
113,000
=======

In 1791, a committee of the House of Assembly made a report on the
number of the slaves, by which it was made to be 250,000; and if to
this be added the free negroes, amounting to 10,000, we obtain, as the
total number, 260,000,--showing an increase, in fifteen years, of
65,386--or nearly 48,000 less than the number that had been imported.

We have now ascertained an import, in 89 years, of 473,000, with an
increase of numbers amounting to only 224,000; thus establishing the
fact that more than half of the whole import had perished under the
treatment to which they had been subjected. Why it had been so may be
gathered from the following extract, by which it is shown that the
system there and then pursued corresponds nearly with that of Cuba at
the present time.

"The advocates of the slave trade insisted that it was impossible to
keep up the stock of negroes, without continual importations from
Africa. It is, indeed, very evident, that as long as importation is
continued, and two-thirds of the slaves imported are men, the
succeeding generation, in the most favourable circumstances, cannot
be more numerous than if there had been only half as many men; or, in
other words, at least half the men may be said, with respect to
population, to die without posterity."--_Macpherson_, vol. iv. 148.

In 1792, a committee of the Jamaica House of Assembly reported that