We have been accustomed of late to fluctuations of property, but it would be difficult to find in any other list of prices such instances of ruinous declension. The above were cases of private sale; let us now look to the estates which were sold by execution in the country, and we shall find a still greater decadence. In the following list, which is that of 1846, the Kitty estate, disposed of in 1840, appears again.
| Kitty Estate, | £3,000 | £60,000 |
| Nismes, | 5,000 | 55,000 |
| Vryheid’s Lust, | 6,000 | 55,000 |
Let those persons who think that the planters were amply compensated by the sum of £20,000,000 at the time of emancipation, consider the above figures carefully: and they may arrive at a different conclusion. Let us adopt the argument of the Planter, and take the case of the Kitty estate, of the original value of £60,000. Suppose that upon this estate there had been £18,000 of debt, and a clear vested remanent interest to the proprietor of £42,000. Let us further suppose that the property had not changed hands until 1846, when it was brought to sale, and the result will be, that the compensation money, estimated at £15,000, and the price which the estate fetched in the public market, would barely have sufficed to buy off the mortgage, and the proprietor’s £42,000 would have utterly disappeared!
We are enabled from a private source to carry out the history of one of these Demarara estates. “We bought it,” says our correspondent, “or rather we took it over as a bad debt for our mortgage (upwards of £12,000) for £5,000. Of course no person would have had any thing to do with it but under the circumstances stated. And to show you that property is now of no value, we may mention that we took an estate over, valued in the year 1825 at £60,000, as a bad debt; and though the estate has been advertised for sale or lease, we cannot get an offer of any kind, and have accordingly determined and sent out orders to abandon it. The works are in first-rate order, and every thing complete; therefore you may judge of the sacrifice; which, however, is only imaginary, as the cultivation of this estate, since 1842, has cost us £13,000 more than the produce has yielded. This does not include interest, but the actual wages and expenditure to make crops which have sold for £13,000 less than they cost us to produce. I could enumerate many others, but one is as good as a thousand. The situation of some of the estates is much in their favour, and this was another reason that induced us to take the one alluded to on any terms.
“The West Indians have been often taunted with not adopting the improvements which are introduced in the slave colonies. At the cost of about £2,000 we sent out last August machinery for that estate, and since then have written out not to unpack it, and, in the serious contemplation of abandoning the estate, have asked the makers of that machinery to take it off our hands, as they have a good many orders for foreign slave-growing countries. I believe, if we determine to sacrifice it, that they will send it to Porto Rico or Havannah.”
The following letter, written by a highly respectable gentleman in this country, who is also a Jamaica proprietor, and referring to the present depreciation of property in that island, has been placed in our hands. The reader must judge for himself as to the hardship of the case which it portrays.
“Any information that I can give in reference to the present alarming and distressed situation of Jamaica, is, I believe, nothing more than what might be afforded by every one connected with that once flourishing, but now all but ruined island.
“I consider my case a hard one, and thousands are in a similar situation. I shall merely state a few simple facts as regards myself. About four years ago, upon the understanding and belief that the question, as to a fair protection in favour of our colonial sugar over foreign, or more especially slave labour sugar, was for ever set at rest, I became the purchaser of a fine estate in the island of Jamaica, for the sum of ten thousand five hundred pounds. In order to give every justice to the property, I sent out a fine new steam engine, and various other kinds of machinery and agricultural implements—in short, have expended upwards of seven thousand pounds, over and above the proceeds of all the produce made upon the estate during the course of the last four years (so that it now costs me about eighteen thousand pounds) in the hopes of eventually reaping a fair return. And this would have been the case for crop 1847, had not the unexpected and cruel measure of admitting slave-labour sugar at a low duty been introduced and carried by Lord John Russell last year. My attorney in Jamaica, before he was aware of such a rash and heartless step being taken, made out a statement of the expected crop and expenditure on the estate for the said year 1847, taking sugar at a moderate price, by which he showed a good surplus of one thousand pounds; but, alas! ere the produce came to market, prices fell so low, that in place of making any profit (though the estate made a good crop) I shall lose from one thousand to twelve hundred pounds, besides the interest on the eighteen thousand pounds of capital. This, you are aware, is perfectly ruinous, and I have been obliged to write out to my attorney, in order to save my property at home, to stop planting any more canes in the meantime; and, unless government immediately retrace their steps, to abandon the estate altogether. I am sorry to say, that this has been the hard fate with many a proprietor already, and must, ere long, overwhelm the whole colony. My property was considered one of the finest in the island, and if it perish none can stand. I might give particulars of many cases of extreme hardship, but it is needless to multiply these, as you must have many similar facts from other sources.”
The following letter is taken from a late number of a Jamaica newspaper, and we recommend it seriously to the attention of our readers:
“To the Editor of the Jamaica Despatch, Chronicle, and Gazette.