५ 'any where, The country seemed improving, and trade increasing. The estate he visited near the Cape was large; it was 'calculated to make 300 hogsheads of sugar. It was beautifully laid out, and as well managed as any estate he had seen in the West Indies. His official correspondence as Admiral with the Haytien government, made him attribute much efficiency to it, and it bore strong marks of civilization. There was a better police in Hayti, than in the new South American States; the communication was more rapid; the roads much better. One had been cut from Port au Prince to Cape Haytien, that would do honor to any country. A regular post was established. The government is one quite worthy of a civilized people. The negroes of Hayti, are certainly richer, and happier, and in a better condition than he had ever seen elsewhere. They were all working in the fields when he was there. He rode about very much. He did not think any acts of oppression were practised on the people of Hayti by the government." Mr. Jeremie, late first president of the royal court of St. Lucia, informs us that in St. Domingo, "is found a happy, flourishing, and contented peasantry, engaged in the cultivation of their own small freeholds; and as these persons acquire capital, they form larger establishments, and are gradually rising. This proves, that the general wants of the community are supplied, and, if well governed, that community must soon acquire strength, and rise to importance." Essays on Colonial Slavery, 1832, p. 63. The following facts, collected from the new and valuable "Dictionary-of Commerce and Commercial Navigation," by J. R. McCulloch, London edition, 1834, abundantly confirm the foregoing testimonies. In 1786, the exportation of coffee was about 35,000 tons. In consequence of the subsequent devastation of the island, the exportation for some years almost totally ceased; but it has now risen to about 20,000 tons! p. 309. The amount of the following articles, exported in 1832, was estimated as follows, viz: Coffee, Cotton, Tobacco, 50,000,000 lbs. 1,500,000 lbs. 500,000 lbs. Cocoa, ¡Dye wood, Tortoise shell 12,000 lbs. 6,000,000 feet 80,000-p.927. The quantity of sugar exported in 1832, is not stated; but in 1826, it amounted to 32,864 lbs.; and it should be recollected, that about twenty years before, not an ounce of that article was manufactured on the island, p. 926. The imports into France, in 1831, from Hayti, exceeded in value the imports from Sweden-Denmark, the Hanseatic Towns-Holland-Portugal-Austria-the French East Indies—or China, p. 637. In the same year, the importation of French wines into Hayti amounted to 108,495 gallons, p. 1250.* Cotton manufactures, to the amount of 6,828,576 yards, were exported from Great Britain to Hayti in 1831, being about one-tenth the number of yards exported the same year to the United States, p. 446. Our readers are now competent to judge for themselves how far the assertions of Mr. Stone and the Rev. Dr. Clough, are consistent with truth; and also, what is "the practical commentary" offered by the history and present state of St. Domingo, on "the mad schemes of our well meaning but deluded philanthropists." CHAPTER IX. EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. "THE British Government, in part to conciliate the West India proprietors, and in part through apprehension of the danger of immediate emancipation, determined to abolish slavery in such a manner as to fit the slave for freedom. Instead of breaking his yoke, it was to be reduced in weight; and six years were to be occupied in filing off his manacles. On the first of last August, the slave was told and believed, that slavery was abolished; but on the morrow, he was sum *The quantity of French wine imported the same year into Great Britain for home consumption, was.254,366 gallons. p. 1255. ›moned to his usual task, and required to work as before, without reward. Astonished and disappointed, he doubted the legality of the mandate, and hesitated to obey it. He was then informed, that, although no longer a slave, he was nevertheless an apprentice, and must toil on for six years longer, before he could enjoy the fruit of his labor. Had emancipation been nominally, as well as really, prospective, the slave would have regarded it as a boon; but he did not readily comprehend the distinction between slavery and apprenticeship. There was, however, a very important distinction, which he soon discovered, and which did not promote his acquiescence in protracted wrong. The lash was, by act of Parliament, wrested from the master's hand; and while he was authorized to command his apprentices to labor, he was forbidden to punish them for idleness or insubordination. On this subject a Jamaica paper remarks: "It is clear, and there is no use in disguising the fact, that the apprentices can no longer be coerced in the way they formerly were; for in the first place, no magistrate can legally inflict more than twenty-nine stripes, and, in the next, it is not possible to furnish magistrates enough for the purpose. The hope, therefore, of coercing, is absurd, and must be abandoned." The conduct of the West India negroes, under these cir cumstances, proves how utterly groundless are the apprehensions entertained of emancipation. Disappointed and irritated, and at the same time almost wholly released from the control of their masters, they have exhibited a meekness, patience, and forbearance, utterly without a parallèl. The great mass of the apprentices continue to labor, but some have either refused to work, or accomplish less than their appointed tasks. None of the insurrections, murders and conflagrations, which were so confidently predicted by the enemies of abolition, have occurred. Not one life has yet been taken, not one dwelling fired throughout the British West Indies, by the emancipated slaves. * This forbearance is the more remarkable, when we consider the numerical superiority of the negroes, in the West Indies, and particularly in Jamaica, where there are 331,000 slaves, and only 37,000 whites. *Two sheds, called trash houses, were lately burned in Jamaica, proably, but not certainly, by an apprentice. Whatever may be the result of the apprenticeship experiment, Abolitionists are not responsible for it. It was adopted contrary to their advice, and is inconsistent with the doctrines they profess. The emancipation which they believe to be most consonant with the will of God, most conducive to the safety and happiness of the whites, is immediate and unconditional. They rejoice that their doctrines are at this moment subjected to a severe and practical test, and they await the issue with unshaken confidence. The Legislatures of Bermuda and Antigua, have adopted the very course which the American Anti-Slavery Society recommends to the slave States. With the permission of the British government, these Legislatures dispensed with the apprenticeship altogether, and on the first of last August, granted immediate and unqualified emancipation. That we may judge of the fanaticism, the madness, the wreckless incendiarism of these Legislatures we must take into consideration the number of slaves they "let loose upon the community," and their relative proportion to the white population. In Bermuda there are 5,500 whites, 4,650 slaves, and 500 free blacks. In Antigua, 2,000 whites, 30,000 slaves, and 4,500 free blacks.* The Bermuda Gazette, of the 4th August, thus speaks of the great change effected on the 1st: "The day was as remarkable for quietude, exemption from labor, and solemnity, as that which marks the Sabbath in a Christian land. The only bustle perceptible, was in preparation for attending public worship, which his Excellency, the Governor, most wisely ordered to be performed: thereby dedicating it wholly to God, the willer and doer of this great work. The churches and other places of public worship on the island, were crowded to excess, every possible accommodation being afforded to the colored people. From every quarter we hear of their orderly, nay more, exemplary behavior. Four days of universal freedom have now passed, and four days of more perfect regularity and quiet have these famed peaceful is.ands never witnessed." Such was the immediate result of turning loose 4,000 slaves. Let us now attend to the subsequent testimony. The Hon **American Almanac. Mr. Butterfield, Chief Justice of Bermuda, in his charge to the grand jury on the 6th November, referring to the abolition of slaves in the island, observed: "This measure, which was necessarily one of fearful experiment, has not, I am happy to say, disappointed the hopes of the public, whose feelings in its favor were expressed with a unanimity as unexampled as, I am proud to say, altogether honorable to the character of the country. On the contrary, it is a subject of congratulation, and certainly of commendation to the emancipated, that in three months during which we have been able to mark its working the general character and comfort of society has improved, and the evils which some of its best friends apprehended, were in all cases overrated, and in some have hitherto had no existence." But in Bermuda the whites were equal to the blacks, and the manumitted slaves were perhaps restrained from outrage, by the consciousness of their own weakness. It seems as if Providence had provided facts to refute every argument that can be urged against abolition. Let us now turn to Antigua, where the slaves were to the whites as 15 to 1, and the free blacks as 3 to 2, and see how far in this overwhelming preponderance of the colored over the white population, immediate emancipation confirmed Dr. Hawkes's theory? Let the Antigua newspaper of 7th August, answer. "The great doubt is solved-the alarming prognostications of the advocates of slavery falsified-the highest hopes of the negroes' friends fulfilled, and their pledge honorably redeemed. A whole people, comprising thirty thousand souls, have passed from slavery into freedom, not only without the slightest irregularity, but with the solemn and decorous tranquillity of a Sabbath. A week has nearly elapsed, and although all eyes and ears are open, and reports spread rapidly, we have not heard of a single act of insolence, insubordination or violence committed by any one of them, under false and licentious notions of freedom." From the same paper, of the 14th August: "It is with the highest satisfaction we announce, that we know of and believe that there is no gang of laborers in the island, which has not returned to its accustomed employment." So that two weeks after the slaves were "let loose," instead of begging and stealing, they were all quietly at work. |