102 
WANDERINGS IN 
SECOND 
JOURNEY. 
Slavery. 
value, when you know that last year Demerara 
numbered seventy-two thousand nine hundred and 
ninety-nine slaves. They made about forty-four 
million pounds of sugar, near two million gallons of 
rum, above eleven million pounds of coffee, and 
three million eight hundred and nineteen thousand 
five hundred and twelve pounds of cotton; the 
receipt into the public chest was five hundred and 
fifty-three thousand nine hundred and fifty-six 
guilders; the public expenditure, four hundred 
and fifty-one thousand six hundred and three 
guilders. 
Slavery can never be defended; he whose heart is 
not of iron can never wish to be able to defend it: 
while he heaves a sigh for the poor negro in captivity, 
he wishes from his soul that the traffic had been 
stifled in its birth; but, unfortunately, the govern¬ 
ments of Europe nourished it, and now that they are 
exerting themselves to do away the evil, and ensure 
liberty to the sons of Africa, the situation of the 
plantation slaves is depicted as truly deplorable, and 
their condition wretched. It is not so. A Briton’s 
heart, proverbially kind and generous, is not changed 
by climate, or its streams of compassion dried up by 
the scorching heat of a Demerara sun ; he cheers 
his negroes in labour, comforts them in sickness, is 
kind to them in old age, and never forgets that they 
are his fellow-creatures. 
Instances of cruelty and depravity certainly occur 
here as well as all the world over; but the edicts of 
the colonial government are well calculated to pre¬ 
vent them ; and the British planter, except here and 
