[207] North British Review, Nov. 1852.
[208] See Uncle Tom's Cabin, chap. xxxi.
[209] Letters to Lord Aberdeen, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 9, 10, 12.
[210] Rev. Sidney Smith.
[211] See page 109, ante.
[212] It is commonly supposed that the road toward freedom lies through cheapening the products of slave labour; but the reader may readily satisfy himself that it is in that direction lies slavery. Freedom grows with growing wealth, not growing poverty. To increase the cost of raising slaves, and thus to increase the value of man at home, produces exactly the effect anticipated from the other course of operation, because the value of the land and its produce grows more rapidly than the value of that portion of the negro's powers that can be obtained from him as a slave—that is, without the payment of wages.
[213] See page 280, ante.
[214] The following statement of the operations of the past year completes the picture presented in Chapter IV.:—
"A tabular return, prepared by order of the House of Assembly of Jamaica, exhibiting the properties in that island 'upon which cultivation has been wholly or partially abandoned since the 1st day of January, 1852,' presents in a striking light one of the many injurious consequences that have followed the measure of negro emancipation in the British West Indies. The return, which is dated January 27, 1853, shows that 128 sugar estates have been totally abandoned during the year, and 71 partially abandoned; of coffee plantations, 96 have been totally, and 56 partially, abandoned; of country seats—residences of planters or their agents—30 have been totally, and 22 partially, abandoned. The properties thus nearly or wholly ruined by the ill-considered legislation of the British Parliament cover an area of 391,187 acres."
[215] Economist, (London,) Feb. 12, 1863.