uch a mode of comparison must, however, be
obviously incorrect; because, in the first place, Mr. Canning's
resolutions had reduced the crops of those years considerably below the
average of the years immediately preceding them, and next, because it
would show the advantage to be on the side of freedom in the ratio of
seventy-two to sixty-nine, which cannot be correct. Besides, in 1824,
there was a severe drought, whereas in 1834 and 35 the seasons are
reported as being favorable. Again, it is necessary, in instituting such
an inquiry, to go back more than fourteen years; nor is it a valid
objection to this to say, that even during that period a number of
estates have been thrown out of cultivation, in consequence of being
worn out and unprofitable. "Deplorable," however, as is the "falling off
in the yearly amounts of our staple productions, which have decreased,"
gentle reader, according to the despatch, "in an accelerated ratio
within the last few years, till in the year 1836, when they do not
average one half the returns of former years preceding that of 1823, the
year that Mr. Canning's resolutions for the ultimate abolition of
slavery in the British colonies passed the House of Commons," still it
is a matter of sincere gratification to know, that the sugar planters
are better off now than they have been for the last fourteen or fifteen
years. With the compensation money a great many of them have been
enabled to pay off their English debts, and the remainder very
considerably to reduce them, whilst the reduction in the quantity of
sugar produced, has occasioned such a rise in the price of that article
as will place the former in easy circumstances, and enable the latter
entirely to free themselves from the trammels of English mortgagees, and
the tender mercies of English mortgagees before the 1st August, 1840,
arrives. And ought these parties not to be thankful? Unquestionably they
ought. Ingratitude, we are told, is as the sin of witchcraft, and
although the table of exports exhibits our fair island as hastening to a
state of ruin, and the despatch tells us that "by the united influence
of mock philanthropy, religious cant, and humbug," a reformed parliament
was _forced_ "to precipitate the _slavery spoliation_ act under the
specious pretext of promoting the industry and improving the condition
of the manumitted slaves," still we maintain, and the reasonable will
agree with us, that we are much better off now than we