Against this we have opposed, in the western world alone, nearly £60,000,000 of agricultural produce, exportable and exported yearly, requiring a trade in returns equal to £56,000,000, and a proportionate number of ships’ tonnage and seamen. In the trade with Cuba and Port Rico alone, the United States have 1600 vessels employed yearly, (230,000 tons of shipping,) making numerous and speedy voyages, and from which trade only, these states, in case of emergency, could man and maintain from twenty to thirty sail of the line.

On the part of foreign nations there has, since 1808, been £800,000,000 of fixed capital created in slaves, and in cultivation wholly dependent upon the labour of slaves. On the other hand, there stands on the part of Great Britain, altogether and only, about £130,000,000 (deducting the value paid for the slaves) vested in Tropical cultivation, and formerly dependent upon slave labour, and which has in part been swept away, while the remainder is in danger of being so.

Let us have recourse to a few returns and figures, in order to show what is going on, especially by slave-labour in other countries, as compared with British possessions, in three articles of colonial produce, namely, sugar, (reducing the foreign clayed sugar into muscovado to make the comparison just,) coffee, and cotton; and as regards a few foreign countries only, nearly three-fourths of which produce, be it observed, has been created within the last thirty years.

Sugar—1842.
British possessions. Foreign possessions.
cwts. cwts.
West Indies,2,508,552 Cuba,5,800,000
East Indies,940,452 Brazils,2,400,000
Mauritius, (1841,)544,767 Java,1,105,757
Total,3,993,771 Louisiana,1,400,000
Total,10,705,757
Coffee—1842.
lbs. lbs.
West Indies,9,186,555 Java,134,842,715
East Indies,18,206,448 Brazils,135,000,800
Total,27,393,003 Cuba,33,589,325
Venezuela,34,000,000
Total,337,432,840
Cotton—1840.
lbs. lbs.
West Indies,427,529 United States,790,479,275
East Indies,77,015,917 Java,165,504,800
To China from do.,60,000,000 Brazils,25,222,828
Total,137,443,446 Total,981,206,903

The above figures require only to be glanced at, to learn the increased wealth and productions of foreign nations, in comparison with the portion which England has in the trade and value of such articles, now become absolutely necessary for the manufactures, the luxuries, and the necessaries of life amongst the civilized nations of the world.

In the enormous property and traffic thus created in foreign possessions, by the continuance and extension of the slave trade, British merchants and manufacturers are interested in the cause of their lawful trade to a great extent. The remainder is divided amongst the great civilized nations of the world, maintaining in each very extensive, very wealthy, very powerful, and, as opposed to Great Britain, very formidable commercial and political rival interests.

Further, it is the very extensive and profitable markets which the above-mentioned yearly creation of property gives to the manufacturers of foreign countries, that have raised foreign manufactures to their present importance, and which enables these, in numerous instances, to oppose and to rival our own.

The odds, therefore, in agricultural and commercial capital and interest, and consequently in political power and influence, arrayed against the British Tropical possessions are very fearful—six to one.

This is a most serious but correct state of things. Alarming as it is to contemplate, still it must be looked at, and looked at with firmness; for even yet it may be considered without terror or alarm.

The struggle, both national and colonial, is clearly therefore most important, and the stake at issue incalculably great.