ourage or to compel industry. We must confess that we have no special
zeal to vindicate this system from its full share of blame; but we are
rather inclined to award to it every jot and tittle of the dishonored
instrumentality which it has had in working mischief to the colony.
However, in all candor, we must say, that we can scarcely check the
risings of exultation when we perceive that this party-fangled
measure--this offspring of old Slavery in her dying throes, _which was
expressly designed as a compensation to the proprietor_, HAS ACTUALLY
DIMINISHED HIS ANNUAL RETURNS BY ONE THIRD! So may it ever be with
legislation which is based on _iniquity and robbery!_

But the subject which excites the deepest interest in Jamaica _is the
probable consequences of entire emancipation in 1840_. The most common
opinion among the prognosticators of evil is, that the emancipated
negroes will abandon the cultivation of all the staple products, retire
to the woods, and live in a state of semi-barbarism; and as a
consequence, the splendid sugar and coffee estates must be "thrown up,"
and the beautiful and fertile island of Jamaica become a waste howling
wilderness.

The _reasons_ for this opinion consist in part of naked assumptions, and
in part of inferences from _supposed_ facts. The assumed reasons are
such as these. The negroes will not cultivate the cane _without the
whip_. How is this known? Simply because _they never have_, to any great
extent, in Jamaica. Such, it has been shown, was the opinion formerly in
Barbadoes, but it has been forever exploded there by experiment. Again,
the negroes are _naturally improvident_, and will never have enough
foresight to work steadily. What is the evidence of _natural_
improvidence in the negroes? Barely this--their carelessness in a state
of slavery. But that furnishes no ground at all for judging of _natural_
character, or of the developments of character under a _totally
different system_. If it testifies any thing, it is only this, that the
natural disposition of the negroes is not always _proof_ against the
degenerating influences of slavery.[A] Again, the actual wants of the
negroes are very few and easily supplied, and they will undoubtedly
prefer going into the woods where they can live almost without labor, to
toiling in the hot cane fields or climbing the coffee mountains. But
they who urge this, lose sight of the fact that the negroes are
considerably civilized, and that, like