INTRODUCTION. 11 



colonies was constituted. In my opinion, however, measures 

 might have been devised to counteract some of these results, and 

 to render the act of emancipation what it ought really to have 

 been a boon to the slaveholder, as well as to the slaves them- 

 selves, a powerful engine of civilisation, and an advantage, not 

 only to the colonies, but to the parent nation at large. 



Had wise and well-calculated measures been adopted to pre- 

 pare or to conduct that vast experiment of emancipation, there 

 would now be no occasion for refuting the allegation that " eman- 

 cipation was a Quixotic act, alike injurious to both master and 

 servant, commercially detrimental to the nation, and therefore to 

 be considered as a warning, rather than held forth as a lesson for 

 the guidance of other slave-holding states." But, not only was 

 public opinion impatient of all delay, and indignant at all restric- 

 tive regulations, but a cry, loud and incessant, was raised against 

 the old and cherished system of protective duties; and the adop- 

 tion of an entirely new policy was urged by the Manchester school 

 of economists : a policy justified by its success, but which is, it 

 must be conceded, supremely inconsistent with the high and holy 

 principles which dictated the abolition of negro slavery. 



A few years only after societies had been formed in Great Britain 

 against the consumption of articles, the produce of the British 

 slave colonies, some of the very men who had lauded the forma- 

 tion of such societies, or approved their object, began to show the 

 inconsistency of interdicting slave-grown sugar, coffee, and cocoa, 

 whilst admitting slave-grown cotton ; and the principle which had 

 first prevailed, that a differential duty should exist between free 

 and slave-grown produce being abandoned, the Act of 1846 was 

 passed. 



Free-trade policy, and above all, the Equalisation Act of 

 1846, has had a greater share in depressing the already suffering 

 colonies of the west, than is generally believed. That Act was 

 passed eight years after the abolition of slavery, so that only eight 

 years had been granted both to the planters and the emancipated 

 class for recovering from the shock of a great social revolution, and 

 for settling down from the violent oscillation which had been im- 

 parted to the entire social body in the colonies ; these eight years 

 had also been a period of unceasing contention, and of growing 

 bewilderment. The planter had to be taught by experience, and 

 by experience only, a totally new system of property-management ; 

 the emancipated had to be taught that freedom imposed on them 

 new duties and new obligations ; that it behoved them to become 

 industrious, to obey laws and submit to prescriptions of which as 

 slaves, they had had no idea. And, notwithstanding what may 

 have been said to the contrary, both planters and emancipated 

 have proved themselves equal to all reasonable expectations. For 

 who, with the slightest knowledge of human nature, could possibly 



