1829. ] Our Colonies. _ 493 
' In the first place let it be remembered, that, owing to the peculiarities 
of climate in the torrid zone, scarcely any but the natives of Africa can 
be found who are capable of enduring such heat as attends upon their 
toils; and that, therefore, the Europeans who, invited by the government 
of this country, and protected by its laws, have ventured their capital 
in cultivating the burning, but fertile soil, of Jamaica, are compelled to 
resort to these people, and to these alone, for the assistance which is 
necessary to the completion of their enterprise. That they are slaves is 
not the fault of the planters ; that being slaves, they are the property of 
those planters, is the fault—if fault in it there be—of this country’s 
government and laws. The conditions, upon which those laws, no less 
than the precepts of common humanity, permit the colonists to avail 
themselves of the labour of the slaves, are, that they should provide for 
them in sickness as well as in health; that they should furnish them 
with food and raiment and dwellings, and that they should extend to 
them that protection Which masters in all communities afford to their 
servants. The mere pecuniary interest which the West-India proprie- 
_ tors have in the persons of their slaves, requires that they should do 
' something more—and as the value of the slaves obviously depends in a 
great degree upon their being able to perform that work from which the 
gains of the planters are produced, the preservation of the health, the 
‘comfort, and the content of the negroes, each of which must influence 
to a very important extent their capabilities and disposition to labour, 
_ become matters of solicitude and anxiety to their masters, and thus 
: the powerful stimulus of interest is added to every other inducement 
_ which the feelings of humanity and the principles of religion exercise 
over the minds of the West-India planters, in favour of their slaves. If 
this were mere reasoning upon principles which are universally recog- 
nised to act upon the minds of men, in all conditions of society, it would 
be hard to refute it; but the case of the West-India planters does 
_ not rest only on such grounds: the indisputable evidence of authenti- 
_ tated facts proves that the slaves of Jamaica are in the actual enjoyment 
_ of all the comforts and advantages which are the fair rewards of their 
labour. The hours during which they work are not more—we believe 
not so many—as those which are devoted to the same purpose by the 
agricultural labourers of Great Britain. The negroes toil under the 
_ burning sun of the torrid zone; but it is the climate to which they are 
_ born; nor are its effects more painful nor more injurious upon their 
_ constitutions, than the stormy and inclement weather which belongs to 
our “cold and cloudy clime.”’ They enjoy an ample sufficiency of 
- nutritious food ; and, unless all that has been heard of agricultural dis- 
tress in England be a wanton fiction, a malicious invention of the enemy, 
_ can the same thing be said of the suffering peasants of England? of the 
_ potatoe-fed population of Ireland? of the healthless myriads who swarm 
in our manufacturing towns? or of the famishing silk-weavers of Spital- 
ids, whose cries of hunger still ring in our ears? But it may be 
ected that these advantages, even though they preponderated more 
than they do in favour of the negro slaves, would not weigh as a 
feather in the balance, with the inestimable advantages of liberty. 
_ The Englishman who should deny it would be a shame to his country, 
a reproach to the mother who bore him. But the answer to this objec- 
ion, and it is a sufficient one, is that which has been furnished by one 
of the ablest, the most eloquent, and the most candid, of the enemies 
of the colonies—and would to God that he were still alive, and that 
