260 TIMEHRI. 
gang in general is another point of essential consequence, 
and the standard by which to begin is to require from 
the abie negro, one-third or at the very utmost one-half 
of the labour that would in the same time be performed 
by an able European labourer. With this proportion, 
an estate of 200 negroes, being a fair gang, should 
make 4oo hhds. of Sugar or 200,000lbs. of coffee, or 
180,o00lbs. of cotton, supposing the soil to be good, 
the works adequate, and the cultivation of proper extent. 
But sugar is the only cultivation upon which this return 
can be expected. 
NEGROES. ' 
There is no subje€t upon which so much difference 
and error of opinion subsists as the description of the 
negro charaéter. 
On one extreme old Spanish colonial writers have 
laboured to prove them inferior in intel!eét, and designed 
by Providence to show the lowest state of degradation 
in humanity. In opposition to this, Les Amzs de Noirs 
wish to exalt them above all examples of civilized Society 
and to endow them with a greater share of instinétive 
abilities and natural virtues than the most favoured of 
Europeans. Between such ridiculous assumptions, the 
truth may be easily discovered by the simple test of 
those principles that constitute the superiority of science 
and civilization over ignorance and barbarism—that exalt 
the Union of Society over the feuds of individual in- 
terest. 
In Atrica, a number of petty tribes and Governments, 
formed upon the first rude principles of individual as- 
cendency, with laws scarce more than sufficient to make 
the authority of the despot acknowledged amongst his 
