362 FUTURE SUPPLIES CHAP. xxix. 



very insignificant if it be considered that the 

 whole capital of all the companies, supposing them 

 to remain undiminished when their actual opera- 

 tions commenced, would certainly not amount 

 to a fiftieth, perhaps not to a hundredth, part of 

 what has been lost to America, or transmitted to 

 Europe. 



It is evident from all the accounts which have 

 reached Europe from Columbia, Peru, Chili, and 

 Buenos Ayres, that a great scarcity of labourers 

 is there experienced. The large proportion of the 

 population in these thinly peopled countries which 

 has been compelled to become soldiers may ac- 

 count for this, but the fact is so strongly stated in 

 every report from thence as to leave no doubt of 

 its accuracy. Though the inhuman trade in slaves 

 has continued to convey negroes from Africa to 

 Cuba, none have lately been carried to the continent. 

 Those who were in a state of slavery on the 

 plantations in Columbia have been liberated, but 

 being thus freed were almost universally pressed 

 into the military service. The white inhabitants 

 are too idle or too proud to labour, as long as they 

 can subsist on the productions of those more fruit- 

 ful soils, where a few days' labour will raise food 

 for a year's support where little clothing and 

 less fuel are required, and where a shed serves the 

 purpose of a dwelling. In such circumstances few 

 will work with assiduity, and none without higher 

 inducement than the hope of obtaining luxuries 



