COLONY. 



759 



Coloiy. lolutcly disadvantageous, and home trade absolutely the 

 "^ *Y~^ reverse, it is more correct to regard the former fitted for 

 a merchant of large, and the latter for one of small ca- 

 pital. Failures in the colonial, as in other branches of 

 commerce, originate almost always from people going 

 beyond their depth. Whoever advances money in the 

 colonial trade, must be prepared to consider that portion 

 of his capital as removed for a length of time from his 

 controul, a course which no prudent man will allow him- 

 self to pursue in regard to the whole of his property. 

 When a correspondent is found to disappoint expecta- 

 tion, it would be idle, in the present state of our colonial 

 law, to seek a recovery in a court of justice. The pro- 

 per plan is to apply to another mercantile house, more 

 affluent or more adventurous, and to make it their inte- 

 rest, by a sacrifice, either of a part of the money, or, 

 more properly, of time in regard to repayment, to take 

 over the concern, with its profits and its responsibility, 

 giving security for the ultimate reimbursement of the 

 original lender. Merchants trading to colonies so re- 

 cently settled as Trinidad, Tobago, Demarara, or Suri- 

 nam, find infinite difficulty in avoiding a progressive and 

 serious augmentation of advance. In quarters which 

 approach to a more complete state of cultivation, as Bar- 

 badoes, Antigua, St Kitt's, the wants of the borrower 

 being more easily ascertained, there is less hazard of ad- 

 ditional demands. Jamaica being in some parts highly 

 cultivated, while in others it has extensive tracks of land 

 in a state of nature, may be said to partake of cither si- 

 tuations ; though the vexations characteristic of a new 

 colony must be allowed to predominate. From all these 

 considerations it follows, that our colonial trade, without 

 being necessarily disadvantageous, or, as a long course 

 of distress has made it be termed by many, ruinous, is a 

 branch of business fit only for particular persons ; we 

 mean, persons both of large property and of long expe- 

 rience in the line. It centers, in a great measure, in Lon- 

 don, and is much more suitable to the habits and circum- 

 stances of merchants in the metropolis, than to those of 

 the outports. The latter, limited as they are in point 

 of capital, would consult their interest much more by 

 confining themselves to the capacity of agents for the 

 former, than by attempting a direct connection with the 

 plantert. 



!fgro la- Negro Labour, That impatience to change the scene 

 of residence, with which M. Malouet so strongly charges 

 the French planters, happens, we must confess, to be 

 fully as applicable to our own. The continuance of the 

 practice of performing labour on sugar estates by means 

 of slaves, may be traced, though somewhat indirectly 

 indeed, to the influence of thin feeling. The eagerness 

 of planters to buy negroes at a price much beyond what 

 it would have cost to rear them, was an evident conse- 

 quence of the disposition described by Malouet. A si- 

 milar cause seems hitherto to have prevented any delibe- 

 rate examination of the expediency of providing for the 

 gradual emancipation of the negroes. It has been much 

 disputed among political economists, whether there is in 

 reality any saving by employing slaves. M. Say, one of 

 the most succrsttul commentators on the work of Dr 

 Smith, ventures, in this respect, to dissent from our 

 countrymen, and enters (Trait f d'Economie Politiqur, 

 vol. i. p. 215.) into a long calculation of the expence 

 of slave labour. The result is an estimate of L. 20 or 

 or L. 25 sterling as the annual cost of a negro's support, 

 a sum which he contends (p. '2\H 2'-i.5) is greatly be- 

 low the amount of their annual earnings. On the other 

 hand, Dr Smith, Sir James Stewart, and M. Turgot, 

 maintain, that slave labour is more expensive than free 



labour, because a man in that situation, having no in- 

 terest in his work or in his savings, toils as little and 

 consumes as much as he finds possible, while the same 

 reason operates to prevent him from acquiring that prac- 

 tical dexterity which seldom fails to reward the perse- 

 vering attention of the free labourer. At the time 

 when M. Say wrote, (1803), the abolition of the slave 

 trade had not taken place, and the imagination of that 

 valuable writer was impressed with the most gloomy 

 conception of the condition of the West India ne- 

 groes. The circumstances attending their passage 

 from Africa, appeared to him full of horror. " C'est 

 (p. 225.) If chemin de favcrne i/tii conduit aux cnfers." 

 Apprehensive that many ages must elapse before the 

 planters can be prevailed on to change their plan of la- 

 bour, he proceeds to enquire whether it is not practi- 

 cable to obtain sugar from other quarters. He cites the 

 well-known M. Poivre as an authority for the low price 

 of sugir in Cochinchina, and maintains, that Europe 

 might derive sufficient supplies from that quarter with- 

 out participating in the crime of oppressing the degrad- 

 ed natives of Africa. When we consider the much great- 

 er length of an India voyage, and the disappointment ex- 

 perienced in the case of the Bengal sugar, so much vaunt- 

 ed twenty years ago, we must dissent from M. Say, and 

 continue to expect our chief supplies from the western 

 hemisphere. Nor arc we without hopes of obtaining 

 them without much violation of the duties of humanity. 

 Already very considerable improvements have taken place 

 in the care of negro women and their offspring in their 

 years of infancy. To increase the number of negroes 

 on our plantations, by mild and attentive treatment, is 

 now perfectly understood to be better policy than to 

 overwork them for the sake of making a few additional 

 hogsheads of sugar. Without laying stress, therefore, 

 on the influence of humanity, we may safely trust to 

 the policy of the planters for a disposition to treat their 

 slaves in the way that benevolence would dictate ; al- 

 though, it must be confessed, that they and their white 

 servants have much to learn before they can be account- 

 ed capable of doing justice to the health of their humble 

 dependants. 



Disadvantages of Colonies to the Mother Country. In . 



bringing our remarks to a conclusion, we shall venture t ,.<-, ( ,i f o- 

 to say a few words on a topic on which mercantile pre- lomexoihe 

 judice runs as strongly against us as the feeling of the *fc* r 

 planters against the economists in the case of slave la- c< 

 bour. By way of illustrating our views, we shall have 

 recourse to the sanction of past events. When our North 

 American colonies succeeded, in 1783, in finally obtain- 

 ing their independence, there was a general belief that 

 the brightest season of our commerce was past. No 

 person ventured to think that our colonial trade would 

 be as profitable as before ; and to have said that it was 

 about to become more profitable, would have been ac- 

 counted a singular example of delusion. The fact, how- 

 ever, was, that the colonies continued to make their 

 purchases of manufactured goods from us in the same 

 way as before, and that their new situation ga.vc them 

 additional means for the augmentation of these purchases. 

 Before the ssera of their independence, an export to them 

 of Britisii goods to the amount of three millions, wan 

 accounted most favourable year of trade ; but of late, 

 eleven and twelve millions were, in general, exported ; 

 and when harmony is restored, we may anticipate a 

 steady export of fifteen millions or more. In analyzing 

 the causes of this auspicious augmentation, we find them 

 of two kinds increase of capital, and increase of peo- 

 pie. Both would have been in a course of advancement 



