STAPLES OF AND FOR AMERICA. 35 



field. A few American planters are there upon salaries, 

 and a few servants of the government get up experi- 

 mental farms ; for every man who will try his hand at 

 cotton growing, is sure to be enrolled in parliamentary 

 blue books, and be lionized for the time being ; therefore 

 many lovers of popularity have their little to do with 

 cotton planting ; and among the whole body there is not 

 one interested person, whose hopes are concentrated, and 

 whose means of livelihood is to be realized from his suc- 

 cessful issue in cotton planting. It is lamentable, but it 

 is not less the fact, that people now-a-days carry on all 

 their experimental cultivations, &c., not so much for 

 the purpose of doing good, but to figure in print, and 

 appear to be a somebody. When we look at the volumi- 

 nous reports oh cotton cultivation in East India, when 

 we listen to the worthless wrangling of the Court of Di- 

 rectors of the British East India Company, and the Man- 

 chester Chamber of Commerce, it roust be grievous to 

 find that two such bodies should waste their energies in 

 pen and ink, and high-winded speeches. Every planter 

 of indigo, &c., in East India, is at the complete mercy 

 of a boyish magistrate, or collector ; the planter, what- 

 ever his position may be, is at their discretion. I can 

 say, after fourteen years in the East Indies, that the serf 

 of Russia has far more security than planters or culti- 

 vators have in the British posses^ans in India. On the 

 other hand, instead of the Manchester Chamber of Com- 

 merce or the commercial community employing active 

 and intelligent men and investing their capital to enable 

 such to make themselves a provision, they keep aloof, 

 talk nnd write. Latt.-rly, i. e. 1850, the Chamber sent 

 out a commission of inquiry to ascertain the cause why 



