92 



INSOLVENCY OF THE ISLAND, 



From that moment his thraldom becomes complete, and 

 insolvency, sooner or later, is almost inevitable. 



It was in this way, precisely, that nearly every conside- 

 rable estate in Jamaica became encumbered, before the 

 abolition of slavery, for nearly its full value at that time. 

 Then came the Emancipation Act, and the consequent fall 

 in the price of real estate, which has been steadily obey- 

 ing a downward tendency, until it no longer possesses one- 

 tenth of its former value. 



The change wrought by this law in 1846, in the cha- 

 racter of the labor, would necessarily have produced some 

 confusion for a time, and perhaps serious pecuniary losses 

 were inevitable, but both the confusion and the losses were 

 aggravated to a ruinous extent by the large indebtedness 

 of the island. The planters had nothing in their hands 

 to defend themselves with when the blow came — neither 

 money nor credit. Had they been out of debt, they could 

 have sustained themselves upon the money they received 

 from the government for their slaves, and what they could 

 have borrowed upon their land. But as they were situa- 

 ted, all the money which was allowed them by govern- 

 ment, as emancipation money, had to be applied at once 

 to the reduction of the mortgage debts — for the extinction 

 of which, however, they were altogether inadequate ; so 

 that the planter, after parting with all his slaves, was left 

 under a heavy debt to contend against a new system of 



