ntly, lost their labor and their money. The mortality of the
negroes employed, stated as another reason for abandoning the
attempt, requires a somewhat more lengthy notice.

I can briefly say, that I have learned that in the Central States of
America, deaths among indigo-laborers are not more frequent than in
other branches of tropical industry; and I never heard or have read
that the _original_ growers complained of the mortality attending
the progress. The truth is, that this statement is not founded on
fact. There is nothing whatever in the manufacture of indigo, either
in the cultivation or the granulation, or even the maceration and
fermentation of the plant, which is directly or indirectly, _per
se_, injurious to human life. I have certainly never seen the indigo
plant macerated on a large scale; but I have myself steeped much of
it in water, and allowed it even to rot, and found nothing in the
mass differing in any marked degree from decomposed vegetable
matter. It seems to me that this idea of the manufacture of indigo
being especially inimical to human life, is as unfounded as the
belief, even by Humboldt, up to a very recent period, that none of
the Cerealia would grow in tropical climates. In conversing with an
old gentleman in Jamaica, some twelve years since, who had tried the
manufacture of indigo, and with every prospect of success, but
abandoned it, as he confessed, for the cultivation of the sugar
cane, since it was then more profitable, he suggested the solution,
that as the manufacture was light work, probably aged and
debilitated, in place of youthful and vigorous slaves, were too
frequently employed in the process--hence the mortality. This may be
correct to a certain extent; but I am also inclined to think that
another cause of mortality might be found in the mode and manner in
which the negro was fed and clothed, and not because aged persons
were exclusively engaged in the manufacture. I believe I may state,
without fear of contradiction, that the real cause of the decline
and consequent abandonment of the indigo plant was the monstrous
duty levied upon it by the English government. Indeed, this has been
already stated in the extract from Bridges; while the cause of the
failure of the attempt to renew it, over and above the reasons we
have given, was the greate