SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 123 



The claim of maintenance in case of calamity may be valued, 

 I think, at about one-half more than the whole purchase-mo- 

 ney. When a negro chooses to be emancipated (many, who 

 can afford it, do not choose it) he appears before the magis-^ 

 trate of police, and gives security in a sum of 2000 guilders 

 (1661.) that he shall not become chargeable. This right of 

 settlement, as it would be called in England, the state under- 

 takes to commute with any given proprietor for 166\. by 

 which the state is rather the gainer, so that it may fairly be 

 estimated from 1201. to 1501. A free native of Africa, who 

 had voluntarily come to settle on the Demerary, in order to be 

 as well circumstanced as a negro is after his first sale by auc- 

 tion, would have to expend twice his selling price. His 

 value is doubled. By leaving to the white merchants the 

 whole management of his emigration, it has cost him but half 

 what he must have given to effect it. 



The great use of selling a man by auction is this, that he is 

 thereby beckoned immediately into the form of employment 

 for which there is the greatest call. The carpenter, the black- 

 smith, outbid the planter, if their labour is most in demand ; 

 the planter outbids them, when agriculture is the thriving em- 

 ployment. Thus, without waiting for the lessons of observa- 

 tion, a man finds out at once the most productive form of 

 industry ; without paying for instruction, he is at once ap- 

 prenticed to the most expedient department of labor; and he i? 



R 2 



