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filled with artificial flowers, impart to the dwellings of the simple Haytiens an air of refinement not unworthy of Europe. The scene presented to the view of the traveller, who quits the city of Port au Prince, to journey on the highway to the mountains, though a wild waste, is not a solitary one. On the road he will meet a multitude of cultivators coming to the city market, with horses and asses loaded with provisions. He will see waggons with produce drawn by hardy and healthy cattle. If he departs from the high-road, and turns to the right hand, through one of the woodland paths, he will find himself entering into open grounds, covered with verdant fields; he will see traces every where visible of renewed cultivation; mansions re-erected; aqueducts reconducting their streams to irrigate the land; the sound of water-mills at work; cottages no longer deserted, but tenanted by laborers once more issuing from them to gather in the harvest of the teeming soil.

"The island of Jamaica does not exhibit a plantation better established than Chateau Blond; whether we consider the resources of the land, or the mechanical economy by which those resources are commanded, it is a splendid establishment.

"To me who have had an opportunity from the day of my birth, and long residence in a slave colony, of forming by comparison a correct estimate of this people's advancement, the general quiet conduct and respectful behavior of all classes here, publicly and privately, is a matter exciting great surprise."

All this, it may be said, is anonymous testimony. It is so, and yet it seems entitled to at least as much weight as the bare, naked assertions of Messrs. Stone and Clough. We will now offer testimony, to which we presume no objection will be made. The following are extracts from "the report of the select committee on the extinction of slavery throughout the British Dominions, with minutes of evidence, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 11th August, 1832."

Evidence of Mr. Robert Sutherland.

"Are there many persons who work for hire in Hayti? Yes-the whole cultivation is carried on by free labor. these persons work with industry and vigor?

Do

"I have no reason to think they do not. The proof, that free labor in Hayti answers, is this, that after the French were

expelled, there was absolutely no sugar work-there was no mill-there was nothing of that kind which could be put in use: it was destroyed; and since that period, various plantations have grown up in Hayti. Men have gone to the expense of thirty and forty thousand dollars, to build up those sugar works; and it stands to reason, that unless these men were repaid for their capital, they would not continue that sort of work. And there is another thing to be observed that sugar is not the staple commodity of Hayti; they only make sufficient for their own consumption. Coffee is the staple commodity of the island.

"If a man can show, that he has the means of subsistence of his own, is he compelled to labor under the code rurale?

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Decidedly not.

Do you believe that corporal punishment is inflicted upon any of the laborers in Hayti?

I believe it is impossible. I have sccn the peasantry in the Highlands of Scotland where I was brought up, and I declare that the negroes in St. Domingo are comparatively as much superior to them in comfort, as it is possible for one man to be over another."

Evidence of Vice Admiral, the Hon. Charles Fleming, member of Parliament.

"Was told that vagrants and deserters worked by compulsion, but he did not see any himself. Had never heard of any working under the lash. The lash was prohibited by law. The Haytiens appeared to him the happiest, best fed, and most comfortable negroes he had ever seen; better off even than in the Caraccas: infinitely better than in Jamaica; there was no comparison between them. He could not speak positively of the increase of the Haytien population since 1804, but believed it had trebled since that time. They now feed themselves, and they export provisions, which neither the French nor the Spaniards had ever done before.

'He saw a sugar estate near Cape Haytien, General Boulon's, extremely well cultivated, and in beautiful order. It was wrought by blacks, all free. A new plantation was forming on the opposite side of the road. Their victuals were very superior to those in Jamaica, consisting chiefly of meat; cattle being very cheap. The highest contract beef in Hayti, was 2d. in Jamaica it was 12d. He saw no marks of destitution

One had

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. 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,

Cocoa,

Dye wood,

50,000,000 lbs.

1,500,000 lbs.

500,000 lbs.

500,000 lbs.

5,000,000 lbs.

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 circumstances, 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 parallel. 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, probably, but not certainly, by an apprentice.