though it supplies a proof, which no sophistry can elude, of misery and suffering, forms but a small part of the murderous results with which BRITISH COLONIAL SLAVERY is chargeable. Had its victims been placed in circumstances equally favourable with the free blacks around them, or even with their fellow slaves in the United States, instead of decreasing in eleven years by 52,624, they ought to have increased by upwards of 220,000. The following is the ground on which this appalling fact (involving a waste, in the slave colonies of Great Britain, of more than 270,000 lives in eleven years) is confidently averred: incurs in supplying us with the sugar we consume. We are thus made direct participators in his crime. Another million of pounds, at the least, is annually paid by this country for maintaining those establishments, civil, naval, and military, by which the slaves in the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Mauritius, are kept in subjection to the cart-whip, and by which the masters are protected in inflicting upon them misery and death. Besides this, the interests of British commerce are sacrificed, for the profit of the growers of sugar by slave labour, in the West Indies and the Mauritius, and in order to protect them against the competition of free labour in our own Asiatic dominions. This is done by imposing on the sugar of India a duty of six shilling a cwt. more than is paid on that of our slave colonies. The African slave-trade was abolished by Great Britain, and by the United States, in the very same year-that is to say, in 1808. Any impediments to the progress of population arising from the disproportion of the sexes, or from other circumstances incident to that traffic, must have been nearly alike in the two The mischievous effects of such a policy are cases. In 1808 the slaves of the United obvious. Sugar is one of the most generally States may be computed to have amounted-nay, universally, desired articles of foreign to 1,130,000, and those of the British West import; and its consumption in this country Indies to 800,000: In 1830 the slaves of the might be increased three or four fold. And United States amounted to 2,010,436, and yet, so attached are we to slavery that we prethose of the British West Indies to 678,527. vent, by this additional impost, the hundred If, however, the British slaves had increased millions of our fellow-subjects in the East at the same rate with the American slaves, from supplying us with this article at a cheaper their number, in 1830, instead of being only rate, in payment of our manufactures, which 678,527, would have been 1,423,317, or manufactures they would gladly buy of us if 744,793 more than their actual amount. we would take their sugar in return. And There has, therefore, been, in the twenty-two how desirable is it to encourage such a years, from 1808 to 1830, a waste of slave life vent for our industry! At the rate of even a in the British West Indies, as compared with shilling a head, our Indian population would its increase in the United States, of nearly consume five millions' worth of our manufac745,000 human beings.* tures; and, by giving employment to our workmen to that extent, and thus raising their wages, far more good would be done than if the same money were given away among them. In short, the benefits to be derived from removing restrictions from trade in every direction are incalculable; but in no direction are such restrictions more injurious to our own interests, and more destructive of human happiness at home and abroad, than when employed to bolster up the cruel and impolitic If this statement be even a distant approximation to the truth (and there appears no ground on which to impeach its general correctness), can it be denied that British colonial slavery is one of the severest calamities which now afflict humanity? And even this heavy accusation, supported as it is by such irrefragable proof of the murderous tendency of that wretched system, would be aggravated by a view of its demoralizing effects on both the slave and his master, and of its admitted in-system of slavery. compatibility with the progress of Christianity in the slave colonies. But on this point, also, the public mind is now abundantly satisfied. The demolition of the houses of God in Jamaica, and the persecution of the Christian missionaries and their negro converts, which still rages there, render it unnecessary to dwell on that subject. These circumstances of crime and cruelty will greatly aggravate your guilt, if having, as electors, the power of putting an end to this enormity, you suffer its existence to be prolonged. But yet these evils are wholly distinct from those PECUNIARY and COMMERCIAL SACRIFICES to which this address is intended especially to point your attention.-To glance at some of them: The people of this country are now paying, to the growers of sugar by slaves, a bounty on its export of upwards of five shillings a cwt., by which bounty the price of the article is raised to the same extent in the home market. The tax thus levied on the British consumer amounts to more than a million pounds sterling a year, and it is paid in direct support of that system of slavery which, as has been shown, produces such disastrous effects. It operates, in fact, as an indemnity to the slaveholder for the enormous waste of negro life he See, for farther details on this subject, the "Anti-Slavery Reporter," Nos. 97 and 100. It has been shown that the destruction of human life in our slave colonies, during the twenty-two years from 1808 to 1830, has amounted to about 745,000 of our fellowcreatures. If these, instead of being thus wasted by the rigours of slavery, had, by a more lenient treatment, been added to the existing population, we should now, probably, be receiving from their labour 400,000 or 450,000 tons of sugar, instead of our present supply of 200,000. Sugar would thus be so much reduced in price, and the duties upon it might also be so much lowered, as to bring it within the reach of our whole population. Such an effect, in regard to cotton, has followed the increase of population in the United States. The import, thence, of that article into Great Britain has increased about fourfold in the last fifteen or sixteen years, while its price has fallen to a third of its former rate that is, from 1s. 6d. to 6d. a pound—thus it has greatly lowered the cost, while it has enlarged the manufacture and consumption, of that now indispensable necessary of life. It might further be shown, that not only would trade and shipping be benefited, in an almost incalculable measure, by the abolition of slavery, and of all those commercial restrictions by which slavery is upheld, but that still more important results might be expected to follow. The competition of free labour in our Indian dominions has gradually compelled the slave-holders, all over the world, to abandon to them the cultivation of indigo; and it is now grown solely by free labour. In this case, the extinction of slavery in the British colonies, even if it should not operate powerfully in the way of example, as we might fairly expect it to do, on the United States, and on France, Brazil, Spain, and other nations, would, at least, establish in the West a growing population of free labourers, to aid the efforts of the free labourers of the East in rendering slavery as unprofitable, in the culture of sugar and other articles, as it now is in the culture of indigo, and thus making it the common interest, no less than the duty, of all nations to abandon the crimes both of slavery and the slave-trade. The enormous evils of British slavery, and its tendency to obstruct, by the sacrifices required to support it, the extension of our commercial intercourse with the world at large, and the advance of happiness and civilization, not only in this but in all lands, have now been laid before you. Can a single word be necessary to excite the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland to exert every nerve to rid themselves of the withering influence, on our highest interests, both moral and commercial, of this scourge of humanity-this foul stain on our national character? It is now in your power, for the first time, to destroy this gigantic evil, and to save yourselves from its guilt and its costliness; and while, by doing so, you will largely benefit your own country, you will be conferring blessings, in other countries, on millions yet unborn, and may even hope to be instrumental in terminating both slavery and the slave-trade throughout the world. Be persuaded, therefore, Electors, to rise to the full appreciation of the high and sacred obligations which attach to you in the exercise of your newly-acquired franchises-obligations which you cannot overlook without guilt. By means of the representatives of your choice, you may put an immediate extinguisher on this expensive national crime. Assert, then, your right to deliver yourselves from its malignant influence, and to extend the bloodless and unfettered range of your commercial intercourse into every corner of the habitable globe. If you thus act, you will see the want of employment, and the distress consequent upon it, of which so many now complain, vanish by degrees from your sight; while your growing prosperity, founded on the basis of humanity and justice, will shed the blessings of light, liberty, and improvement, not only on the population of the British empire, but on the whole family of man. That such may be one of the first-fruits of a Reform in the Commons' House of Parliament, is the earnest prayer of A BROTHER ELECTOR. TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S EPIGRAM ON LIBERTY. WOULD you be free! 'Tis your chief wish, you say: Come on; I'll show thee, friend, the certain way. WE beg to direct the special attention of our readers to the address "To the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland," contained in our present number. It contains as important and perspicuous statements, and as cogent arguments, with relation to the abolition of slavery, as we remember ever to have seen. It is, moreover, particularly appropriate to the present time, when the constituency of the kingdom are expecting shortly to exercise (and many of them for the first time) the most important and responsible function that can devolve upon them in their political capacity. The public mind has been too long misled by the false statements and the equally dishonest omissions of the party interested in the perpetuation of slavery. It is now high time that the delusion should be exposed and discarded, and that Englishmen should (though late) yield their honest attention to a subject which addresses them in every relation they can sustain as husbands, as fathers, as friends; which appeals, in short, with equal force, to their principle, their benevolence, and their selfishness. We take this opportunity of stating that a series of articles will shortly appear in the Tourist, upon THE SAFETY OF IM MEDIATE EMANCIPATION. * On each side of this egg she places another, weather. Kirby justly describes this little vessel as resembling a London wherry, being sharp and higher, as sailors say, fore and aft, convex below and concave above, and always floating on its keel. "The most violent agitation of the water," he adds, "cannot sink it; and, what is more extraordinary, and a property still a desideratum in our life-boats, though hollow, it never becomes filled with water, even though exposed. To put this to the test, I placed half a dozen of these boats upon the surface of a tumbler half full of water: I then poured upon them a stream of that element from the them. Yet, after this treatment, which was so mouth of a quart bottle held a foot above rough as actually to project one out of the glass, I found them floating as before upon their bottoms, and not a drop of water within their cavity." We have repeatedly pushed them to the bottom of a glass of water; but face, apparently unwetted.-Lardner's Cabinet they always came up immediately to the surCyclopædia. ART AND NATURE. O How much sweeter is it to me to recal to my mind the walks and the sports of my happy childhood, than the pomp and the splendour of the palaces I have since inhabited! All these courts, once so brilliant, are now faded! All the projects which were then built with so much confidence are become chimeras! The impenetrable future has cheated alike the se curity of princes and the ambition of courtiers! Versailles is dropping into ruin; the delicious gardens of Chantilly, of Villers-Coterets, of Sceaux, of the Isle-Adam, are destroyed! I should now look in vain for the vestiges of that fragile grandeur which I once admired there: but I should find the banks of the Loire as full of violets and lilies of the valley, and as smiling as ever, the meadows of St. Aubin its woods loftier and fairer! There are no vicissitudes for the eternal beauties of nature; and while, amidst blood-stained revolutions, palaces, marble columns, statues of bronze, and even cities themselves, disappear, the simstorm, grow into beauty, and multiply for ple flowers of the field, regardless of the ever.-Madame de Genlis. DISPOSAL OF EGGS BY THE COMMON THE most singular disposal of eggs with which we are acquainted in the economy of insects is exemplified in the common gnat. (Culex pipiens, LINN.) It is admirably described by Réaumur, though it seems first to have been discovered by Langallo, who mentions it in a letter addressed to Redi, printed at Florence in 1769; and by Alloa, who actually saw the eggs laid, and afterwards sketched a figure of them. Those who wish to witness this singular operation must repair before five or six o'clock in the morning to a pond or a bucket of stagnant water frequented by gnats; when Réaumur went later in the day he was always disappointed. LAUNCESTON CASTLE, CORNWALL. The problem of the gnat is to construct a boat-shaped raft, which will float, of eggs THE above represents the ruins of one heavy enough to sink in water, if dropped into of the most ancient castles in the counit one by one. The eggs are nearly of the try. It is situated on the summit of a pyramidal form of a pocket gunpowder flask, hill, on a high, conical, rocky mount, rather pointed at the upper, and broad at the partly natural and partly artificial. It is under end, with a projection like the mouth of of such antiquity as to defy the efforts of a bottle. The first operation of the mother gnat the curious to ascertain who were its is to fix herself by the fore-legs to the side of a bucket or upon a floating leaf, with her bodyflevel founders, or what was the precise date of with and resting upon the surface of the water, its foundation. One of the earliest noexcepting the last ring of the tail, which is a tices of it which we find is in the reign of little raised; she then crosses her two hind-legs King John, who constituted Hubert de in form of an X, the inner opening of which Burgh governor of it, a person of consiis intended to form the scaffolding of her structure. She accordingly brings the inner anglederable possessions in Cornwall. of her crossed legs close to the raised part of her body, and places in it an egg, covered, as From its strong position, and its situation at the entrance of the county, this parliamentary war. It was at first in the hands of the parliament, and under the governorship of Sir Richard Buller, who, on the approach of Sir Ralph Hopton with the king's forces, quitted the town and fled. In 1643 Sir Ralph was attacked by Major-General Chudleigh, without success. In August, 1644, the place was surrendered to the Earl of Essex, but fell into the hands of the royalists again after the capitulation of the earl's army. In the time of the Commonwealth, the castle and park, being put up to sale by the government, were purchased is usual among insects, with a glutinous fluid. castle was an important post during the by Robert Bennet, Esq., but on the Re storation they to the crown. 1 to enotod ELECTRICAL EEL THOSE of our readers who are acquainted with the history of the Royal Society, or have read the interesting papers recorded in its Philosophical Transactions, will recollect the very curious and valuable experiments made by Mr. Walsh, in the year 1772, on the Torpedo, or eramp fish (Raia Torpedo), by which he ascertained, not only that the effects produced by its touch were electric in their origin and character, but also that the will of the animal commands the electric powers of its body. Those also who have read, are not likely ever to forget, the learned, instructive, and elegant discourse addressed to the Royal Society in 1774, by Sir J. Pringle, then its president, on delivering to Mr. Walsh the Copleyan gold medal for his ingenious paper. Although it is our object, in this paragraph, to present to our readers an account of a most singular fact which has recently taken place, we would observe, in passing, that the discourse we have referred to was printed, with five others, in 1783, under the title of "Six Discourses, delivered by Sir John Pringle, Bart., when President of the Royal Society; on occasion of six annual assignments of Sir Godfrey Copley's medal;" and that, if they happen to meet with the volume, the purchase and perusal of it will highly gratify their taste for scientific research and elegant composition. Never since we first read these admirable discourses, nearly thirty years ago, have we forgotten the .relish which they then produced, or failed to renew it on every fresh perusal. Other kinds of fish have been found to possess similar properties, in some respects, to the torpedo; but none of them in so remarkable a degree as the Gymnotus Electricus, or Electrical Eel. A specimen of this fish has lately been examined by the Parisian savans. The greatest number were satisfied with a single touch, and consequent shock; but one doctor, either urged by a greater zeal for science, or governed by a more insatiable curiosity, resolved to try the utmost extent of the animal's powers, and seized it with both his hands; but had quickly reason to repent his temerity; for he immediately felt a rapidly-repeated series of the most violent and successively-increasing shocks, which forced him to leap about in a most extraordinary manner, and to utter the most piercing screams, from the agony that he felt. He then fell into convulsions, in consequence of which his muscles became violently contracted, as, from some strange property in the fish, it became impossible to detach the animal from his grasp. In this situation he remained a considerable time, and, in all probability, would have expired under the agony of his sensations, if some of the persons had not suggested the plunging of the hands in water, when the eel immediately dropped off. The doctor has since been dangerously ill. ANDERSONIAN MUSEUM. AMONGST the Egyptian antiquities preserved AMONGST the Egyptian antiquities preserved in the Andersonian Museum were two mummies of the cat, which animal was held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, along with the ox and ibis. From the extreme antiquity of the specimens of these animals, it became a question of some interest to ascertain their identity with recent and existing species. This investigation was undertaken by Cuvier, with a view to refute the hypothesis of La Mare, of the transmutation of animals in the process of time, and from the influence of external We have not room to enter more parSir Christopher Wren was appointed ticularly into a description of Greenwich the architect, and for several years con- Hospital; but it is one of the most intertributed his time, labour, and skill to the esting and useful institutions which our work, without any remuneration. The country can boast; and whether we foundation of the first new building was regard the benevolence of its design, laid on the 3rd of June, 1696, from the magnificence of its structure, the which time it has been gradually en-extent of its resources, or the excellence larged and improved, until it has at- of its economy, it is every way worthy as and of a tained its present degree of splendour and of a great, a generous, and a Christian magnificence. To ovog d people, and admirably calculated, by exGreenwich Hospital now consists of hibiting the gratitude and respect of the four distinct piles of building, distin- nation to its gallant naval defenders, to guished by the names of King Charles's, stimulate succeeding generations to rival Queen Anne's, King William's, and their exploits and participate their glory. ANECDOTE OF NAPOLEON, re convinced that it was so. The viands were excellent, the wines exquisite, the table coNAPOLEON, Sitting one day surrounded by vered with an abundance of massy silver plate; his friends, related the following anecdote, in short, the young traveller was obliged menwhich, he said, will do wonders as a lesson, if tally to admit, that he had never partaken of it is but listened to, and remembered. "There more delicate fare, or seen a greater display of lived once, at Marseilles, a rich merchant, magnificence; and he was more than ever conwho received one morning, through the hands founded upon ascertaining, from one of the of a young man, a letter, strongly recommend-persons near him, that the banker gave a ing the bearer to his notice; the young man similar entertainment once or twice a week. was of good fortune, and wanted only an in- While coffee was serving he ruminated on all troduction into society; he brought also a let- that he had witnessed; but his young ideas ter of credit to a large amount. The merhad to arrange themselves into that mutual chant, after having read the letter of recom- dependance of cause and effect which would mendation, instead of either throwing it aside easily have brought the whole to the level of as waste paper, or shutting it up in a drawer, his understanding. Young man,' said his examined it, and, finding that it formed only host, tapping him on the shoulder, you are one of the four sides of the sheet, tore it in absent, and almost pensive; have you made a two, placed the written half in a leaf of his bad dinner? But the expression of his eyes, portfolio, and then, folding the other half, so and the inflexion of his voice, in pronouncing that it would serve for writing a note, put it into these words, seemed to mean, 'Has not your another portfolio, which already contained a fear of a bad dinner yet vanished? The young number of similar papers. Having completed man blushed, as if he had really heard the lathis little measure of economy, he turned ter sentence, but the good-humoured financier towards the young man, and invited him to understood his blush, and, laughing, said, 'No dinner for that very day. The youth, acoffence; you are too young to understand how customed to a life of elegance and luxury, felt masses are formed, the true and only power; but little inclination for dining with a man whether composed of money, water, or men, it who could thus appropriate the privileges of is all alike. A mass is an immense centre of the chiffonier, by depriving him of his waste motion, but it must be begun-it must be paper; he accepted the invitation, however, kept up. Young man, the little bits of paper and promised to return at four o'clock. But which excited your derision this morning are as he descended the narrow staircase, from the one among the means I employ for attaining it."" counting-house of his banker, his mind rapidly "A fine story this, that you have been reverted to the observations he had made upon telling us, Buonaparte," said Josephine, smithat small gloomy room, with the two long ling; "to me the most marvellous part is, offices that led to it, encumbered with ledgers that you have been speaking for a quarter of that were half smothered with dust and smoke, an hour together, and that to women only." and where ten or a dozen young persons were working in silence, whose faces appeared to his jaundiced eyes like perfect skeletons. He thought of the windows, plastered with a thick coat of mud, through which no ray of the beautiful sun of Provence could ever penetrate; the little bowl of box-wood, filled with saw-dust, to serve for powder, the broken writing-desk, the dressing-gown of the banker; and all these recollections, rushing at once upon his mind, produced the reflection, 'I have done a foolish thing in accepting the invitation; but no matter, a day is soon passed. The duties of the toilet were discharged rather for his own satisfaction than in compliment to the host who expected him; and, that done, he proceeded to the street of Rome, where his banker's house was situated. As the latter had told him his wife did not live in that part of the mansion occupied by the counting-house, he begged, on arriving, to be conducted to the lady. A number of valets in rich liveries led him across a small garden, filled with rare and exotic plants; and, after conducting him through several apartments sumptuously furnished, introduced him to a handsome drawing-room, where he found his banker, who presented him to his wife and mother; the former was young and pretty, the latter not yet old, and both were dressed in rich stuffs, and adorned with fine pearls and sparkling diamonds, which attested the wealth of the honest and laborious head of the family; he himself was no longer the personage his guest had seen in the morning; he seemed to have left behind, amongst the dusty ledgers and portfolios, the man of the black velvet cap and woollen dressing-gown, while the manners and conversation of fifteen or twenty visitors, who were assembled in the drawing-room, led to the inference that this house was one of the best, if not the very best, in the city. Dinner was served, and he was "I did not forget that, I assure you," PERSECUTION AND SLAVERY. | A GRECIAN LEGEND. THERE lay a ship of Egypt homeward borne, Lament lament! dead is the mighty Pan!" Untasted left, and from the threshold turned The saffron-vested bride, amidst the blaze THE IMPOLICY OF SLAVE LABOUR. OUT, must, along with other charges, be covered by the market price of the produce of the land. A SERIES of valuable papers on the subject Hence, the proprietor who cultivates his estates of Colonial Slavery is now in the course of ap- by slaves, CANNOT, in similar circumstances, compearing in the Cambridge Independent Press. pete, in the same market, with him who employs They are furnished by the Rev. G. W. Crau-free men; he must be PROTECTED by a monopoly ; furd, a Fellow of King's College, and cannot or, in plain English, we must SUBSCRIBE, in order fail to do important service to the cause of to enable him to continue working his estate by humanity. We hope they will be extensively then, that slavery introduces into the system of such expensive machines as slaves. It is plain, read; and that their talented author will, ere labour an ADDITIONAL CHARGE; and, without prolong, have to rejoice over the annihilation of tecting-duties, that is, a direct tax or sum of so impolitic and inhuman a system. The money, levied on the people of the parent state for following paper forms the second of the series. this service, every slave-colony must, sooner or In introducing it to our readers, we may be later, sink into the abyss of bankruptcy and paupermitted to remark, that Mr. Craufurd has perism. This may be proved, first, as a matter of fallen into a slight inaccuracy in stating the theory; and then, as a matter of experience, from amount of the protecting duty on sugar and historical evidence. coffee: it is now £8 on the former, and £24 on the latter; instead of £10, and £28, as stated by Mr. Craufurd. If we cause, can persuade men, from motives of PURE HUMANITY or RELIGION, to undertake a good of course it is very delightful but we know, from experience, that the greater part of mankind are very little moved, except by motives of SELF-INTEREST; and even religious persons are NOT SORRY When they find that their exertions in the cause of mercy tend to advance their worldly profit. I feel, therefore, pretty certain of gaining the attention of many, while I address you upon the subject of the enormous expensiveness of slavery," and show what a heavy burden it lays upon us--the people of Great Britain; and what ruin it brings upon the slave-owners and planters in the colonies. When I get to the subject of mere mercy, or religion, the attention of many readers will, I fear, begin to flag. First, let me show the ruin which it necessarily brings upon the planters and slave-owners. Land is every where cultivated at the simple expence of the support, that is, the maintenance in food, clothing, and lodging, of the race of labourers. These are the NATURAL WAGES of labour. Accidental circumstances, indeed, may cause fluctuations in them, and changes for a short time; but this is the centre, or natural level, determined by the constitution of things. The market price of produce must cover this expence, together with the WEAR and TEAR of all MACHINES or implements used; besides a certain profit on the capital employed. Now, the race of slave-labourers (so their masters assure us) receive the same maintenance as the free. In addition to which, while infants, before they are able to work, when they are sick, and in the decrepitude of old age, they draw their subsistence from the funds of their owner, without making ANY RETURN. And planters assure us, that, at such seasons, they are very handsomely provided for. Again, the planter is said to furnish all his slaves liberally with food and raiment. Now, in furnishing supplies, the economy of an individual, who has only himself, or his family, to consult for, must be always superior to that of a man who has under his charge a great number of families, who, all of them, consider WASTE as no LOSS TO THEM. This must be, even when he himself is the proprietor, RESIDENT on his property. But the proprietors of three quarters of West Indian estates are persons resident in England; and their affairs are conducted by AGENTS, whose only interest is to make sugar as fast as possible, and get their coMMISSION paid: while, upon them, no loss, occasioned by the waste of slaves' lives, or the waste of property, ever falls. Here, then, is a DOUBLE DRAIN upon money the wastefulness of the slaves themselves, and that of the overseer or agent. Besides, when slaves are indolent, or refractory, or criminal, the whole pecuniary loss falls upon the owner. And to all these drawbacks we have to add a permanent and incurable one. The slave propriefor has introduced an EXPENSIVE MACHINE into his system, with which the master of free labourers is not burdened, namely the SLAVE HIMSELF. The annual interest of the first cost of this machine, and its restoration, before the machine is wORN Let us suppose the case, that a certain colony possesses 40,000 slave labourers; the first cost of which is £1,600,000, naming, as the average price of slaves, £40 a head. This labour is put in motion, and sustained, at an annual expence of £20 a piece, or £800,000 as the total. (Some planters will tell us, that the average expence of slaves is even £24 or £26 per annum, but I have taken a low estimate.) This sum of £20 a piece is supposed to include only food, clothing, lodging, superintendence, medical advice, and the sustenance of the young, infirm, aged, and females, when, through pregnancy, they are unfit for labour, for the race of slaves must be kept up. But, to these natural wages of labour, we have to add the annual interest on the FIRST COST of the labourers, namely at six per cent, the rate of colonial interest, £96,000. To this we must add insurance on the capital vested in this perishable commodity; say at the low rate of three per cent. This gives an additional expenditure of £48,000. Further, it is well known that slave labour is much inferior in productiveness to free labour, by at least five per cent. This deduction from the master's profits is the same as outlay. We have here, therefore, another expence equal to £80,000 per annum. Further, all the incidental disabilities PECULIAR TO SLAVE labour, such as sulks, running away, imprisonment for SLAVE OFFENCES, inability to work after being flogged, &c., &c. all these are equal to one per cent, or £16,000 more. Adding all these expences together, we find that they amount to £1,040,000 per annum. Now, suppose a colony stocked with 40,000 FREE labourers. The whole expense of their support, and for the perpetuation of the race of labourers, is about £20 a piece, or £800,000 per annum. To this sum the masters of free labourers have nothing to add. The labourer takes care of himself and his family, and, under all circumstances of sickness, or other adversity, pays his own way. We may perceive, therefore, that the masters in the slave colony pay for their labour £240,000 more than the masters in the free colony. Hence, it follows, that the WHOLE CAPITAL INVESTED IN AGRICULTURAL SLAVES IS LOST, OF CONSUMED every SEVEN years. This is the price of slavery. This is nature's revenge for the violation of natural rights. I have supposed this colony to contain 40,000 slaves. All our slave colonies put together contain, at least, 400,000 full-grown working slaves. Hence it follows, that the sum paid for their labour, over and above the cost of free labour, is not less than £2,400,000 per annum. Pretty expensive work this! But some persons will say, all this is only THEORY; and your calculations may be quite wrong. Let us come, then, to history, facts, and documents; and, as a specimen of slave colonies, we will take Jamaica; an island fertile, abounding in valuable productions, well situated for commerce and highly favoured by England. The sugar of the West India planter is protected in the British market by a difference of £10 per ton, levied on the sugar of the East. His coffee by a difference of £28; his rum by 11s. 6d. per gallon, and the like with other articles. He and the West India merchant have, in effect, a monopoly of the trade and of the market. Surely, this island sHOULD ABOUND IN WEALTH. What MORE COULD NATURE OR LEGISLATION DO FOR IT? Let us look at the picture of their condition drawn by able observers, and by the inhabitants themselves. Mark this detail of forty years! In 1792, says Bryan Edwards, "the great mass of the planters are men of oppressed fortunes, consigned by debt to unremitting drudgery mocks their grasp, of happier days, and a release in the colonies, with a hope, which eternally from their embarrassments.' In the same year a Committee of the assembly appointed to examine into the state of the sugar trade, report that "In the course of twenty years, 177 estates in Jamaica have been sold for the payment of debts; 55 estates have been thrown up; and 92 are still in the hands of creditors-total 324! And, it appears, from a return made by the provost marshal, that 80,121 executions, amounting to £22,563,786 have been lodged in his office, in the course of twenty years!" In 1804, a Report of the Assembly in Jamaica, printed by order of the House of Commons, states that "Every British merchant holding securities on real estates, is filing bills in Chancery to foreclose, although, when he has obtained his decree, he hesitates to enforce it, because he must become the proprietor of the plantation, of which, from fatal experience, he knows the consequence. No one will advance money, to relieve those whose debts approach half the value of their property, nor even lend a moderate sum without a judgment in ejectment, and release of errors, that, at a moment's notice, he may take' out a writ of possession, and enter on the plantation of his unfortunate debtor. Sheriff's officers, and collectors of taxes, are every where offering for sale the property of individuals who have seen better days, and now must view their effects purchased for half their real value, and at less than half their original cost. Far from having the reversion expected, the creditor is not often satisfied. All kind of credit is at an end. A faithful detail would have the appearance of a frightful caricature." In 1807, the Assembly reports that "within the last five or six years, 65 estates have been abandoned; 32 sold under decrees of chancery; and 115 depending in chancery. In five years, total 212! The sugar estates lately brought to sale, and now in the Court of Chancery, in this island and in England, amount to about one fourth of the whole number in the colony!" In fine, they observe" Under a continuance of the present circumstances, your committee anticipate, very shortly, the bankruptcy of a much larger part of the community, and, in the course of a few years, of the whole class of sugar planters, excepting, perhaps, a very few in peculiar circumstances.' In 1812, the Assembly addressed themselves to the king, and represented their ruin as complete. "The crop of coffee is gathering in," they say, "but its exuberance excites no sensation of pleasure. If the slaves of the coffee plantations are offered for sale, who can buy them? The proprietors of the old sugar estates are themselves sinking under accumulated burdens. If ever there was a case demanding the active and immediate interference of a paternal government, to relieve the burdens, and alleviate the calamities of a most valuable and useful class of subjects, it is that of the coffee-planters in Jamaica.' In 1813, Mr. Marryatt stated in the House of Commons that "There were, comparatively, few estates in the West Indies that had not, during the last twenty years, been sold or given up to creditors." In 1830, in an address to parliament, they pray that "in consequence of the alarming and unprecedented state of distress in which the whole British West India interest is involved, parliament would adopt prompt and effectual measures of relief, in order to preserve them from inevitable ruin!" The only way to avert it is to free their slaves. To crown the whole, they have been obliged to borrow from Parliament, THIS VERY YLAR, near £1,000,000. |