12 



THE COMPLAINTS OF THE PLANTERS. 



British West Indies at £43,104,889 8s. 6<L, and the 

 government finally allowed the owners only £16,638,937 

 8s. lJL, or less than fifty per cent., whereby the slave- 

 holders sustained a loss of over £26,000,000 in addition 

 to the loss, supposed to be twice as much more, sustained 

 from the depreciation in the value of the fixed property? 

 much of which, this change in the character of the labor 

 rendered no longer productive or available. 



3rd. In 1846, Parliament passed a law reducing the 

 duties on sugar, by which slave grown sugars were admit- 

 ted into the British market at a corresponding reduction 

 of price. The planters complained that the necessity of 

 using free labor compelled them to expend more in 

 raising their crops, while the removal of the protective 

 duties compelled them to accept less for them when 

 gathered. This act' is now their great grievance. They 

 do not ask the mother country to change its general free 

 trade policy, but they insist that the right of the planters 

 to receive full compensation for their slaves was recognized 

 by the government, that such compensation was not paid 

 in money, but that a prohibitory duty on slave grown 

 sugar was offered them as an important part of their in- 

 demnification. They farther state, that by opening the 

 British markets to slave grown sugar, they are propagating 

 and fostering an institution, the suppression of which was 

 the avowed motive of the government for stripping the 



