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which frequently obliges him to offer his services 

 as a labourer. The price of hands is cheaper 

 here than in France. A freeman, working* as a 

 day-labourer (peon), is paid in the valleys of 

 Aragua, and in the Llanos, four or five piastres 

 a month, not including food, which is very 

 cheap on account of the abundance of meat and 

 vegetables. I love to dwell on these details of 

 colonial iudustry, because they prove to the 

 inhabitants of Europe, what to the enlightened 

 inhabitants of the colonies has long ceased to be 

 doubtful, that the continent of Spanish America 

 can produce sugar and indigo by free hands : 

 and that the unhappy slaves are capable of 

 becoming peasants, farmers, and landholders, 



