^H 



HMMiH 



302 



IMPOLICY OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 



asserted wherever I have been, without the least 

 consideration, without a thought being given to 

 the possibility of employing the free population 

 of the country in daily labour. It is said, that 

 if Africans are not to be obtained, every thing 

 must be at a stand, and the country can make 

 no progress. This argument against the aboli- 

 tion, the Brazilians bring forwards even with 

 much less plausibility than the planters of the 

 Cobumbian islands. In these the number of 

 free persons of colour, is comparatively very 

 small, whereas in Brazil a great proportion of 

 the population consists of free persons in the 

 lower ranks of life. In some parts of the coun- 

 try which I have visited, the free people pre- 

 ponderate considerably, and in none of those 

 districts which I saw, do I conceive that the 

 slaves outnumber the free people in a greater 

 proportion than three to one. It will have been 

 seen from foregoing chapters, that the sugar- 

 plantations are not largely stocked with slaves, 

 and that no estate is without some portion of its 

 lands which are occupied by families who are in 

 a state of freedom. The villages, too, contain 

 free persons almost exclusively, and even in the 

 large towns, the major part of the mechanics 

 are free. 



The slave-trade is impolitic with regard to 

 Brazil on the broad principle, that a man in a 

 state of bondage will not be so serviceable to 



