l influence on
such a race is deteriorating in the extreme. The difficulty would be
indefinitely diminished, were the new immigrants a permanent addition to
the population. By careful regulations for that purpose, they might, in
that case, be subdued by the higher influences of their English
teachers; but the prospect of speedy restoration to the country and
habits of their birth, entirely foils such attempts as these. How far
this great difficulty can be overcome; and if it cannot, how far it may
more than balance the moral and physical advantages of a fuller labor
market,--it requires the most careful inquiry to determine." Here now
are four distinct points upon which the testimony shows, conclusively,
that the coolie system is worse than ever the slave trade has been
represented to be; and that as the slave trade is opposed on the ground
of the destruction of human life which attends it, so the coolie system
should be abandoned upon the same grounds. The points are these: 1st,
the frauds and cruelties incident to the procuring of immigrants; 2d,
the mortality during the middle passage; 3d, the mortality in the
islands where they are employed; 4th, the influence of the heathen
coolies in demoralizing the emancipated blacks among whom they are
intermingled. These points demand serious consideration by Britons, as
well as Americans--by those who would reopen the slave trade, as well as
those who would substitute for that traffic the immigration system.
And now, in conclusion, says the planter, I must beg to demur to
Britain's claiming a monopoly of all the philanthropy in the world
toward the African race; and upon that claim founding another which, if
granted, will secure to her the monopoly of all the labor of Africa
itself; and I would beg, further, that myself and my fellow planters may
be excused, if we cannot see any thing more in all her movements than a
determination to have a full supply of cotton, even at the risk of
dooming Africa to become one vast slave plantation.
While a faithful view of the plans and expectations of the British, in
relation to the production of cotton in Africa, has been presented, it
would be doing injustice to the reader not to give a few facts, in
closing, which indicate that their success, after all, may not equal
their anticipations. The Rev. T. J. Bowen,[45] says of African cotton
generally, that "the staple is good, but the yield can not be more than
one-fourth of what it was o
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