as predicted by the West Indian planters, who certainly had a good
opportunity to know something of the character of the negro, whether
bond or free. But who could suppose for a moment that an enlightened
abolitionist would listen to slaveholders? His response was, that "their
unhappy position as slaveholders had robbed them of their reason and
blunted their moral sense." Precisely the same thing had been foretold
by the Calhouns and the Clays of this country. But they, too, were
unfortunately slaveholders, and, consequently, so completely "sunk in
moral darkness," that their testimony was not entitled to credit. The
calmest, the profoundest, the wisest statesman of Great Britain likewise
forewarned the agitators of the desolation and the woes they were about
to bring upon the West Indies. But the madness of the day would confide
in no wisdom except its own, and listen to no testimony except to the
clamor of fanatics. Hence the frightful experiment was made, and, as we
have seen, the prediction of the anti-abolitionist has been fulfilled to
the very letter.

The cause of this downward tendency in the British colonies is now
perfectly apparent to all who have eyes to see. On this point, the two
committees above referred to both concur in the same conclusion. The
committee of 1842 declare, "that the principal causes of this diminished
production, and consequent distress, are the great difficulty which has
been experienced by the planters in obtaining _steady_ and _continuous_
labor, and the high rate of remuneration which they give for even the
_broken_ and _indifferent_ work which they are able to procure."

The cry of the abolitionist has been changed. At first--even before the
experiment was more than a year old--he insisted that the industry of
the freed black was working wonders in the British colonies. In the West
Indies, in particular, he assured us that the freed negro would do "an
infinity of work for wages."[186] Though he had been on the islands, and
had had an opportunity to see for himself, he boasted that "the old
notion that the negro is, by constitution, a lazy creature, who will do
no work at all except by compulsion, _is now forever exploded_."[187] He
even declared, that the free negro "understands his interest as well as
a Yankee."[188] These confident statements, made by an eye-witness, were
hailed by the abolitionists as conclusive proof that the experiment was
working admirably. "The great truth has