"Missionary efforts in Jamaica are beset at the present time with many and great discouragements. Societies at home have withdrawn or diminished the amount of assistance afforded by them to chapels and schools throughout this island. The prostrate condition of its agriculture and commerce disables its own population from doing as much as formerly for maintaining the worship of God and the tuition of the young, and induces numbers of negro laborers to retire from estates which have been thrown up, to seek the means of subsistence in the mountains, where they are removed in general from moral training and superintendence. The consequences of this state of matters are very disastrous. Not a few missionaries and teachers—often struggling with difficulties which they could not overcome—have returned to Europe, and others are preparing to follow them. Chapels and schools are abandoned, or they have passed into the hands of very incompetent instructors."
We cannot dwell upon each of the West India Islands. Some of these have not suffered so much as others; but while some, from well-known causes, have been partially exempt from the evils of emancipation, all have suffered to a fearful extent. This, as we shall now show, is most amply established by English authorities.
Mr. Bigelow, whose "Notes on Jamaica in 1850" we have noticed, is an American writer; a Northern man; and, it is said, by no means a friend to the institution of slavery. It is certain that Mr. Robert Baird, from whom we shall now quote, is not only a subject of Great Britain, but also a most enthusiastic advocate of "the glorious Act of British Emancipation." But although he admires that act, yet, on visiting the West Indies for his health, he could not fail to be struck with the appalling scenes of distress there exhibited. In describing these, his object is not to reflect shame on the misguided philanthropy of Great Britain; but only to urge the adoption of other measures, in order to rescue the West Indies from the utter ruin and desolation which must otherwise soon overtake them. We might easily adduce many impressive extracts from his work; but, for the sake of brevity, we shall confine our attention to one or two passages.
"Hope," says Mr. Baird, "delights to brighten the prospects of the future; and thus it is that the British West Indian planter goes on from year to year, struggling against his downward progress, and still hoping that something may yet turn up to retrieve his ruined fortunes. But all do not struggle on. Many have given in, and many more can and will confirm the statement of a venerable friend of my own—a gentleman high in office in one of the islands above-mentioned—who, when showing me his own estate and sugar-works, assured me, that for above a quarter of a century they had yielded him nearly £2000 per annum; and that now, despite all his efforts and improvements, (which were many,) he could scarcely manage to make the cultivation pay itself. Instances of this kind might be multiplied till the reader was tired, and even heart-sick, of such details. But what need of such? Is it not notorious? Has it not been proved by the numerous failures that have taken place of late years among our most extensive West Indian merchants? Are not the reports of almost all the governors of our colonial possessions filled with statements to the effect that great depreciation of property has taken place in all and each of our West Indian colonies, and that great has been the distress consequent thereupon? These governors are, of course, all of them imbued, to some extent, with the ministerial policy—at least it is reasonable to assume that they are so. At all events, whether they are so or not, their position almost necessitates their doing their utmost to carry out, with success, the ministerial views and general policy. To embody the substance of the answer given by a talented lieutenant-governor, in my own hearing, to an address which set forth, somewhat strongly, the ruined prospects and wasted fortunes of the colonists under his government: 'It must, or it ought to be, the object and the desire of every governor or lieutenant-governor in the British West Indian Islands, to disappoint and stultify, if he can, the prognostications of coming ruin with which the addresses he receives from time to time are continually charged?' Yet what say these governors? Do not the reports of one and all of them confirm the above statement as to the deplorable state of distress to which the West Indian planters in the British colonies are reduced?"[179]
Again, he says: "That the British West Indian colonists have been loudly complaining that they are ruined, is a fact so generally acknowledged, that the very loudness and frequency of the complaint has been made a reason for disregarding or undervaluing the grounds of it. That the West Indians are always grumbling is an observation often heard; and, no doubt, it is very true that they are so. But let any one who thinks that the extent and clamor of the complaint exceeds the magnitude of the distress which has called it forth, go to the West Indies and judge for himself. Let him see with his own eyes the neglected and abandoned estates,—the uncultivated fields, fast hurrying back into a state of nature, with all the speed of tropical luxuriance—the dismantled and silent machinery, the crumbling walls, and deserted mansions, which are familiar sights in most of the British West Indian colonies. Let him, then, transport himself to the Spanish islands of Porto Rico and Cuba, and witness the life and activity which in these slave colonies prevail. Let him observe for himself the activity of the slavers—the improvements daily making in the cultivation of the fields and in the processes carried on at the Ingenios or sugar-mills—and the general indescribable air of thriving and prosperity which surrounds the whole,—and then let him come back to England and say, if he honestly can, that the British West Indian planters and proprietors are grumblers, who complain without adequate cause."[180]
Great Britain has shown no little solicitude to ascertain the real state of things in her West India colonies. For this purpose, she appointed, in 1842, a select committee, consisting of some of the most prominent members of Parliament, with Lord Stanley at their head. In 1848, another committee was appointed by her, with Lord George Bentinck as its chairman, to inquire into the condition of her Majesty's East and West India possessions and the Mauritius, and to consider whether any measures could be adopted for their relief. The report of both committees show, beyond all doubt, that unexampled distress existed in the colonies. The report of 1848 declares: "That many estates in the British West India colonies have been already abandoned, that many more are in the course of abandonment, and that from this cause a very serious diminution is to be apprehended in the total amount of production. That the first effect of this diminution will be an increase in the price of sugar, and the ultimate effect a greater extension to the growth of sugar in slave countries, and a greater impetus to slavery and the slave-trade." From the same report, we also learn that the prosperity of the Mauritius, no less than that of the West India Islands, had suffered a fearful blight, in consequence of the "glorious act of emancipation."
A third commission was appointed, in 1850, to inquire into the condition and prospects of British Guiana. Lord Stanley, in his second letter to Mr. Gladstone, the Secretary of the British colonies, has furnished us with the following extracts from the report of this committee:—
"Of Guiana generally they say—'It would be but a melancholy task to dwell upon the misery and ruin which so alarming a change must have occasioned to the proprietary body; but your commissioners feel themselves called upon to notice the effects which this wholsale abandonment of property has produced upon the colony at large. Where whole districts are fast relapsing into bush, and occasional patches of provisions around the huts of village settlers are all that remain to tell of once flourishing estates, it is not to be wondered at that the most ordinary marks of civilization are rapidly disappearing, and that in many districts of the colony all travelling communication by land will soon become utterly impracticable.'
"Of the Abary district:—'Your commission find that the line of road is nearly impassable, and that a long succession of formerly cultivated estates presents now a series of pestilent swamps, overrun with bush, and productive of malignant fevers.'
"Nor are matters," says Lord Stanley, "much better further south.