343 HISTORY OF THE [book vr. 
West Indian planters, we find ourselves totally at a 
loss to conjecture what it is that eould excite so 
much acrimony against us; as there exists none of 
those causes, which usually provoke the envy of 
men, and exasperate their malignity. The West 
Indians are not remarkable, (with very few excep¬ 
tions), either for their gigantic opulence, or an osten¬ 
tatious display of it. They do not emerge rapidly 
from poverty and insignificance into conspicuous 
notice. Such of them as possess fortunes of distin¬ 
guished magnitude, as some gentlemen of Jamaica 
are happy enough to do, are not the creation of a 
day. Their names are to be found in the earliest 
records of the island, and their adventures were co¬ 
eval with the first establisment of the colony, and of 
course their properties, such as we now find them, 
are the fruits, of the toil of successive generations. 
Many there are indeed who have competencies that 
enable them to'live, with economy, in this country; 
but the great mass of planters are men of oppressed 
fortunes, consigned by debt to unremitting drud¬ 
gery in the colonies, with a hope, which eternally 
mocks their grasp, of happier days, and a release 
from their embarrassments. Such times as we have 
lately seen, if suffered to continue, might possi¬ 
bly have given effect to their exertions, and have 
lifted them out of their distresses. But it seems 
that poverty is considered as the legitimate heritage 
of every West Indian planter. They may encoun¬ 
ter loss, and struggle with adversity; but never are 
they to profit of contingencies that may enable them 
