1S3G.] 



FA R IvI E R S ' R EG1STER, 



r49 



other: and there can he no doubt, but that, by the 

 general use of slave labor, Virginia, while a 

 'planting country, was greatly benefited — and that, 

 her wealth and prosperity were greatly more pro- 

 moted, than they would have been without slaves. 

 Nothing will make the lowest class of laborers in- 

 dustrious,m any country, but compulsion — whether 

 it be presented in the form of hunger arid cold, or 

 the power of a master. Where land is fertile and 

 cheap, and the climate mild, and the necessaries 

 of life attainable with little effort, more than half 

 the laboring power of the country would be wasted 

 in idleness, without the institution of personal 

 slavery. It is this institution (though not so 

 named.) that has made the rapid growth and pros- 

 perity of the convict colony of New South Wales 

 a theme of admiration and astonishment — though 

 the bondsmen were of the most worthless kind: 

 and the recent destruction of slavery in the British 

 West Indies will surely and speedily reduce these 

 heretofore productive and flourishing islands to a 

 worse condition than New South Wales would 

 have exhibited, with a free population, composed 

 (as her's was) of vagrants and felons. In every 

 country of modern Europe, personal slavery has 

 existed — and it has no where ceased, by operation 

 of law or otherwise, until manifestly opposed to 

 the interest of the masters. Long after its end in 

 Scotland, and in comparatively a modern time, 

 such was the state of poverty, idleness, and mis- 

 ery of a large portion of what ought to have been 

 the laboring poor of that country, that Fletcher of 

 Salton actually recommended the institution of 

 personal slavery, as the be*t remedy for the evil. 

 Yet the general poverty of soil of Scotland, and 

 its severe climate, rendered it one of the most un- 

 fit regions for slavery — and Fletcher,however mis- 

 taken in this respect, w T as an enlightened patriot, 

 and a true lover of liberty. These facts are some 

 of the man}' proofs that slavery is not always a 

 political evil — and that its cessation, even by uni- 

 versal consent, has not always been considered a 

 blessing.* 



*The biographer of Fletcher of Salton, though 

 strongly disapproving many of his political opinions, and 

 his devotion to liberty, which are treated as tending to 

 the extreme of republicanism, still bears ample testi- 

 mony to his talents and worth. The sketch of his life 

 in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia contains these passa- 

 ges. "Andrew Fletcher, of Salton, was a statesman 

 and patriot of the highest order; and though Scotland, 

 his native land, was the chief object of his exertions, 

 yet, wherever the love of country and of liberty pre- 

 vails, he deserves to be remembered with respect and 

 gratitude." "Fletcher was endowed with high ta- 

 lents, great courage, integrity, generosity, and temper- 

 ance. On the purity of his intentions as a patriot, the 

 exertions and sufferings of his life form the best com- 

 mentary. He was a most elegant scholar, and an ac- 

 complished orator. His speeches are remarkable for 

 their plainness and energy — and form, by their brevity, 

 a striking contrast to the wordy eloquence of the pre- 

 sent day." "His Two Discourses on the jUffairs of 



Scotland were written in 1693, when, in consequence 

 of some years of barrenness, a scarcity,- or rather a fa- 

 mine, existed through the land, and occasioned the most 

 severe sufferings to the lower classes. The author de- 

 clares, that besides those who were scantily provided 

 for out of the church [or charity] boxes, there were at 

 the time when he wrote, not less than 200.009 persons 

 in Scotland begging from door to door; 'and though' lie 

 continues 'the number of these be perhaps double to 



But nothing in society can he considered as per- 

 manent; and the circumstances which make slave- 

 ry beneficial are not exceptions to this general 

 rule. These circumstances begin to change as 

 the agriculture of a country becomes highly im- 

 proved. In a "firming country," the clearness of 

 land requires that the owner should especially 

 economize that portion of his capital. Improved 

 processes, and extended and varied culture, make 

 it necessary to disperse the laborers on every larm, 

 and greatly to vary their employments. Then 

 mental power is no less wanting than physical 

 lorce. The ignorant slave who could well and 

 profitably wield the hoe or the axe, under contin- 

 ual supervision, and the ignorant director of the 

 work, who had only to see that it was "kept mov- 

 ing," become equally unfitted for the new and 

 more prefect operations — and if they continue ig- 

 norant, they will always remain unfit agents for 

 operations which, if properly conducted, Would be 

 greatly superior in effect and in profit. It is lor 

 this simple cause, that loss, instead of profit, so of- 

 ten attends the introduction of improved systems 

 of farming — and the blame is generally laid to the 

 delects of the system itself when it is altogether 

 attributable to the unfit agents and means employ- 

 ed. 



But though I dissent from the very general 

 condemnation of the earliest and rudest." system of 

 husbandry in Virginia, no one more reprobates its 



' what it was formerly, by reason of this present dis- 

 ' tress, yet in all time there have been about 100,000 

 ' of those vagabonds, icho have lived without any regard 

 ' either to the laws of the land, or to those of God and 

 ' nature.' He tells us also, that when he considers the 

 many excellent laws enacted by former parliaments, 

 for setting the poor to work, contrasted with their utter 

 inutility — when he considered farther, that all the other 

 nations of Europe (Holland alone excepted) groaned 

 vnder a similar pressure, he was led to believe that 

 neither the cause nor the remedy of the evil had been 

 discovered. As no such evil had been complained of 

 by the classical writers of antiquity, and as much po- 

 verty was the conseauence, in Europe, of the manu- 

 mission of slaves by their Christian masters, he grave- 

 ly supposes that the existence of slavery was the cause 

 of the comjort and industry of the lever orders in for- 

 mer times'. It will hardly be credited by those who 

 are acquainted with his high notions of political rights, 

 and his constant jealousy of the power and ambition of 

 princes, that he proposes reducing all those persons 

 and their posterity, to slavery, by a solemn act of the 

 legislature, that on the one hand they might be com- 

 pelled to work, and on the other, might be insured the 

 necessaries of life." 



It is not in approbation of, or concurrence with, this 

 remarkable opinion of Fletcher, that it is here quoted. 

 That his view was erroneous, and that bis pro- 

 posed remedy would have been most impolitic, 

 (without naming objections on other and higher 

 grounds,) is readily admitted. But that such opin- 

 ions should have been entertained, and zealously as- 

 serted, by one who so well deserved respect as a scholar, 

 a statesman, a patriot, and a philanthropist, is enough 

 to establish the fact that the abolition of personal sla- 

 very in Europe, and even in so inhospitable a region 

 as Scotland, together with its undoubted advantages 

 was attended with man}' great and long continued evils 

 to the community, and, more especially to the very 

 class relieved from slavery. The evils of slavery, such 

 as they are, bear most heavily on the master — and 

 the evils of emancipation, on those who were the 

 slaves. 



