EXTIXCTION OF YEOMEN. 287 



greater part of the eighteenth century, their little freeholds 

 were bought up, and converted into cane-pieces by their 

 wealthier neighbours, who could afford to buy slaves and 

 sugar-mills. They sought their fortunes in other lands : 

 and so was exterminated a race of yeomen, who might 

 have been at this day a source of strength and honour, 

 not onlv to the colonies, but to England herself 



It may be that the extermination was not altogether un- 

 deserved ; that they were not sufticiently educated or skilful 

 to carry out that " petite culture " which requires as I have 

 said already not only intellect and practical education, but 

 a hereditary and traditional experience, such as is possessed 

 hj the Belgians, the Piedmontese, and, above all, by the 

 charming peasantry of Provence and Languedoc, the fathers 

 (as far as Western Europe is concerned) of all our agricid- 

 ture. It may be, too, that as the sugar cultivation increased, 

 they were tempted more and more, in the old hard drinking 

 days, by the special poison of the West Indies new rum, to 

 the destruction both of soul and body. Be that as it may, 

 their extirpation helped to make incAT-table the vicious 

 system of large estates cultivated by slaves ; a system which 

 is judged by its own results; for it Avas ruinate before 

 emancipation ; and emancipation only gave the coup de 

 grace. The " Latifundia perdidere " the Antilles, as they did 

 Italy of old. The vicious system brought its own Xemesis. 



