"the abolition of the slave trade" must be followed by the "total ruin
and depopulation of the island." "Suppose," said they,

"A planter settling with a gang of 100 African slaves, all bought in
the prime of life. Out of this gang he will be able at first to put
to work, on an average, from 80 to 90 labourers. The committee will
further suppose that they increase in number; yet, in the course of
twenty years, this gang will be so far reduced, in point of strength,
that he will not be able to work more than 30 to 40. It will
therefore require a supply of 50 new negroes to keep up his estate,
and that not owing to cruelty, or want of good management on his
part; on the contrary, the more humane he is, the greater the number
of old people and young he will have on his estate."--_Macpherson_,
iv. 256.

In reference to this extraordinary reasoning, Macpherson says, very
correctly--

"With submission, it may be asked if people become superannuated in
twenty years after being in _the prime of life_; and if the children
of all these superannuated people are in a state of infancy? If
one-half of these slaves are women, (as they ought to be, if the
planter looks to futurity,) will not those fifty women, in twenty
years, have, besides younger children, at least one hundred grown up
to young men and women, capable of partaking the labour of their
parents, and replacing the loss by superannuation or death,-- as has
been the case with the working people in all other parts of the
world, from the creation to this day?"

To this question there can be but one reply: Man has always increased