which is the exact antipode of large plantations of sugar. In the centre of the island is a salt lake, yielding annually 3,000,000 bushels, a great part of which was wont to be exported to America. The soil yields freely sugar, cotton, maize, and provisions, and many cattle are reared. The climate is extremely healthy, and the people (amounting, in 1819, towhites, 360; coloured, 320; and slaves, 2451) strong and active. The colonists have a chief or head magistrate, who is confirmed in his office by the government of Antigua, and a deputy is sent to the St. Kitt's assembly. The Wesleyans have a missionary on the island, and 398 members in society. In 1835, there were twenty-one baptisms and nine marriages among the missionaries' disciples. CONCLUSION. THE present and the preceding volume completes the History of the British Colonies in the West Indies 1. It would have afforded me much gratification to have been enabled to place before the public an accurate view of the working of the Slave-Emancipation Act, but I find the statements thereon so contradictory, that there is still so much party feeling on the question, and so much of exaggerated hopes and fears, that a longer period must elapse before a just conclusion can be arrived at. No friend of the human race—and, in particular, no Briton-can contemplate unmoved the truly noble experiment, not only for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, but for the elevation of the African race from the moral degradation and mental servitude in which they have been so long sunk. Nor must we omit to consider that on the final result of emancipation in our own Colonies depends, in a great degree, the proximate or remote termination of bondage among the Colonies of France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, &c., and in the southern portion of the United States. However much we may desire as Christians to witness the abolition of slavery in the settlements of 1 The Bermudas are reserved for the volume on Nova Scotia, &c. as they form a part of the Diocese thereof. our neighbours, I fear that their respective governments are anxiously awaiting the result of emancipation in the English Colonies, ere they form any judgment or decision. This cannot be effectively done until after the apprenticeship has expired, when the practicability of free labour among the negroes will be fully tested. When we consider, therefore, how much depends on the working of emancipation in our own dominions, it behoves us to act with the greatest deliberation and forbearance. We should use every possible effort to advance the welfare of the ci-devant Slave Colonies; no means should be left untried to promote the moral and religious culture of the negro's mind, and to fit him for the high and valuable privilege to which he will shortly be fully entitled. The introduction of a sound system of banking in the West Indies-the extension of steam navigation throughout the Western hemisphere-the reduction, and (where practicable) the entire removal of duties on articles of West India produce, when imported into the United Kingdom-and the permission for the colonists to buy in the cheapest market whatever they require, and to sell in the dearest country whatever they have to dispose of, unfettered by navigation laws and commercial restrictions,—these will give a new tone and stimulus to the languid and almost torpid energies of the West India planters. Let them be permitted to clay and refine their own sugars for the English market-let their tobacco be received at a yearly diminishing duty and the various products of the soil, especially sugar, coffee, and cocoa, have the lowest possible tax levied on them consistent with Revenue advantages. (See larger edition of this work for arguments in favour of a more just mercantile policy for the West Indies.) If these measures be promptly and generously carried into effect, I do not fear the result of the emancipation of the slaves, as I feel assured that when labour meets its due reward, whether it be given to a negro or an European, it will operate as an incitement to industry, thus producing social concord and all the blessings of peace. 1 The progressive results of emancipation are thus shown in a recent Number of the Falmouth (Jamaica) Post-In one year and ten months after the abolition of slavery, 34,000l. have been raised by the negroes for the release of one thousand of their body from the obligations of the apprenticeship. When we consider that the sum which a person so pays is the proved net value of his uncompensated services, over and above the six millions five hundred thousand pounds sterling already divided among the former slaveholders of this colony (which six millions five hundred thousand pounds is money laid down six years in advance for the redemption of the slave), we shall find that full value has been paid for the emancipation of the bondman. If at one year and ten months the average of the money paid is 347. it is not too much to say that on the 1st of August, 1834, the average was 407. 217,000l. on the number of slaves who were recorded as apprentices by the valuators. This gives an estimate furnished by the colonists themselves, of eight millions six hundred and eighty thousand pounds currency, in addition to the six millions five hundred thousand pounds sterling, or ten millions currency, already paid and distributed, making an aggregate of money and value in services, after money paid, more than eighteen millions for negro emancipation in the island of Jamaica. |