ica--Underhill's and Sewell's. The work of Mr. Underhill, although,
as a delegate of a missionary society which had much to do in bringing
about emancipation, he might be supposed to have a strong party
interest, is marked by an impartial caution which entitles it to great
respect and confidence.[4]

As to Mr. Sewell's book, it is marvellous how he could obtain so clear
an insight in so short a time into the true condition of things. The
paucity of statistical facts, however, plagued him, as it does every
writer on Jamaica; and while the delinquencies of the planters are
patent and palpable, he could not appreciate so well as a resident the
difficulties arising from the provoking treacherousness of the negro
character.

It is known by most, who do not choose to remain conveniently ignorant,
that though the ruin of Jamaican planting prosperity has been
accelerated by emancipation, it had been steadily going on for more than
a generation previous. In 1792 the Jamaica Assembly represented to
Parliament that in the twenty years previous one hundred and
seventy-seven estates had been sold for debt. In 1800, it is stated in
the Hon. Richard Hill's interesting little book, 'Lights and Shadows of
Jamaica History,' judgments had been recorded against estates in the
island to the enormous amount of L33,000,000. In the five years before
the slave trade was abolished in 1807, sixty-five estates had been given
up. Against the abolition of the slave trade the Assembly made the most
urgent remonstrances, representing that it would be impossible to keep
up the supply of labor without it. In other words, the slaves were
worked to death so rapidly that natural increase alone would not
maintain their number. The result justified their prediction.[5] In
1804, it appears that there were eight hundred and fifty-nine sugar
estates in operation in the island. In 1834 there were six hundred and
forty-six. In 1854 there were three hundred and thirty. Thus it appears
that in the thirty years previous to the abolition of slavery, one
quarter of the estates in operation at the beginning of that term had
been abandoned, and in the twenty years succeeding abolition one half of
those remaining had been given up. It is certainly no wonder that so
great a social shock as emancipation, coming upon a tottering fabric,
hastened its fall. But the foregoing facts show that, in the language
of Mr. Underhill, 'ruin has been the chronic condition of Jamaica ev