of Mexico, on the road to Acapulco. A considerable time ago, (why was not the period stated?) the Spaniards found it so difficult to procure slaves to carry on the cultivation of sugar and coffee in Mexico, that they resolved to substitute the labour of hired servants for the labour of slaves. At the period alluded to, the price of slaves at Vera Cruz was nearly L.100 sterling each, which price was greatly increased by the mortality which took place amongst them when crossing the high cold regions situated between Vera Cruz and the western part of Mexico, and from diseases caught in the journey. To get over this inconvenience, and the consequences of this loss, not, according to Mr Ward's own shewing, because free labour was cheaper than slave labour, but, as your Grace will observe, because slaves could not, for particular local reasons, be got at the rate at which these were obtained in other places, the Spanish proprietors began to propagate, by marriage between their African slaves and the Mexican Indians, a race of freemen to employ as hired labourers. In this project, according to Mr Ward, they so completely succeeded, that in 1808 estates which had previously been cultivated by slaves were wholly cultivated by free labourers. The manner in which the Spaniards accomplished the propagation of such a race is not stated, but their total disregard of the feelings and the rights of the native Indians is so well known, that it is much to be regretted Mr Ward has not been more explicit in stating "the kind of douce violence," as the Edinburgh Review would phrase it, by which they enforced the connexions which so rapidly produced the race which they required. On this point, however, it is sufficient to remark, that in our West India colonies (Demerara excepted) there are no free Indians to unite to African slaves, in order to bring forth a similar free labour progeny. Again, it is to be regretted, that Mr Ward has not explained fully the coercion by which the Spaniards kept these hired labourers to work. That coercion was used, Mr Ward himself explicit ly admits, when he informs us, that in the revolution of 1810 the planters who had not adopted this system, tr Iwere forced in many instances to give up working their estates, as their

دو

slaves took advantage of the approach of the insurgents to join them en masse; while those who had provided themselves with a mixed caste of free labourers, retained, even during the worst times, a sufficient number of men to enable them to continue to cultivate their lands, ALTHOUGH UPON A SMALLER SCALE.' The translation of this passage into the British from the Anglo-Mexican tongue tells us, that the moment the authority and the power of the master was decreased, even the free labourer ceased to work at the rate which he had formerly done, while the emancipated slave and the slave who had emancipated himself, in Mexico, as in every other place, ceased to perform any work, although he could obtain 3s. 9d. sterling per day for his labour! Such are the actual results of slave emancipation in Mexico-a country where, as Mr Ward informs us, free labour certainly has had a fair trial!"

Instead, therefore, of shewing that the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies is safe and practicable, and which it was the object of the letter to prove, Mr Ward shews us directly the reverse. He tells us, that the moment the slaves become free, they from that moment become marauders and idlers; and further, that such was the effect of the emancipation in 1810, that in 1826, when Mr Ward wrote, " several of the Hacien dos have not yet recovered the losses which they then sustained, and some which were quite ruined, have never been REBUILT." And why not rebuilt, if free labourers could be readily procured, and if the returns from their labour were so great as have been stated? Let Mr Ward answer these questions. But this is not all. Mark, my Lord Duke, what these emancipated slaves became in the moral scale. The sound of the whip, says Mr Ward, in his work upon Mexico, written after the letter which is under consideration, "is never heard; but whether freedom will have the effect (as many hold) of raising the workmen in the scale of civilisation, is a question which I cannot pretend to decide. It is much to be desired certainly, for a more debauched, ignorant, and barbarous race, than the inhabitants of the sugar districts, it is impossible to conceive. They seem to have engrafted the wild passions of the negro

upon the cunning and suspicious character of the Indian, and are noted for their ferocity, vindictiveness, and attachment to spirituous liquors. When not at work, they are coNSTANTLY DRUNK; and as they have little or no sense of religious or moral duties, there is but a slender chance of amendment !"

Mr Ward's figures and details are sufficiently marvellous to lead even the most credulous to doubt their accuracy; thus he informs us in one place, that the proprietor of three estates expends in wages to the workmen and other current charges" at an average 1000 dollars per week, which amounts to L.11,250 sterling per annum on each; and in another place, he informs us that upwards of 150 labourers are employed on each of these estates, at a daily hire of 3s. 9d. or restricting the number to 150, L.8775 per annum, which, considering the value of the produce, only leaves about L.2500 for all the other expenses of such an estate; a sum which, to every one acquainted with the expensive nature of a sugar establishment, is scarcely sufficient to pay for mules and machinery to take off the crop, without making any allowance for any other charges whatever!

But I hasten to other more vulner able points and details. Thus he informs us, that for Mexican sugar, for the most part coarse in appearance, and of a bad colour," the planter receives ON HIS ESTATE FROM 2 to 3 dolls. (the average 2 dolls.) per arroba, which is equal to 12 dolls. or L.2, 13s. 1d. sterling per cwt. And in the name of a Government deceived, and of a country deluded, does Mr Ward, in the face of this, mean to tell us, that his Mexican sugar, coarse in appearance, and of a bad colour," is cheaper than that which is raised either in the possessions of Great Britain, or in the possessions of any other European power? Is it not obvious to the most inattentive observer, that British plantation sugar-certainly superior in quality to the Mexican sugar mentioned-is at this moment selling, freight, duty, and charges (together 36s.) included, at 48s. per cwt.; and when Mr Ward's letter was published, that the same sugar was selling at 53s. per cwt.? Either British plantation sugar or Spanish plantation sugar, therefore, could be pur

chased in Great Britain, reshipped and landed at Vera Cruz, for 31s. per cwt. and from the British colonies and the Havannah direct at a still lower rate. These facts and points cannot be denied; and therefore, unless sugar, the produce of slave labour in this and in every other quarter of the world, is either prohibited or loaded with an enormous protecting duty in Mexico, it is evident that the people at Vera Cruz, and in that part of Mexico, would never be such fools as to give 53s. per cwt. for Mexican sugar, exclusive of the land carriage from the quarter where it is produced, which must exceed 20s. per cwt. (if the land carriage did not exceed this sum, foreign sugar, as is obvious from the prices above stated, would reach the interior of Mexico at a lower rate than their own) more, or 738. per cwt., while they could get Cuba or British plantation, sugars, of better qualities, at 30s. per cwt., or about 80 per cent lower than their own! These facts, my Lord Duke, are obvious to the most inattentive man in the commercial world. Yet Mr Ward tells us, that "it is a curious fact, that an immense quantity of sugar yearly remitted to Vera Cruz, not for exportation, but for the home consumption of a province which might produce sugar enough to supply all Europe, if it chose to turn to account the advantages with which nature has so richly endowed it." Here Mr Ward knocks down Mr Ward; and let him explain or adduce at his leisure the reason why the province of Vera Cruz does not turn its prodigious advantages to account? why it does not apply free labour to cultivate sugar, in order to supply all Europe? My explanation of the questions is, that sugar is not produced in the province of Vera Cruz, because free labourers there will either not work at all, or will not work at a rate of wages which the cultivator and capitalist can afford to give; and as to the price which the Mexican sugar is said to bring on the estates where it is produced, and at Vera Cruz, where it is brought, at a heavy expense, in land carriage, the amount cannot be correct, because, if the price were there so high, there is no article whatever that would pay so well as shipments of slave plantation sugar to Acapulco and to Vera Cruz from Britain and

is

elsewhere; and your Grace may rest

assured, that if what Mr Ward states was really the fact, some of our greatest anti-colonists and declaimers against slavery would, in a few months, have a dozen of ships in the harbour of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, loaded with sugar raised by slaves, obtained from any quarter where they could purchase it cheapest.

Mr Ward tells us, that the sum paid annually on an estate which produces on an average 30,000 arrobas (6500 cwt.) is about L.8900. Your Grace has only to consult the average price of West India sugar in the London Gazette, to find that at this rate a West Indian estate would not defray the expenses of the labour expended upon it, without allowing any thing for capital vested in it, and for supplies purchased for it; and the reason why no Mexican sugar is exported from Mexico, is because it brings such a high price there, that it would be undersold at a rate amounting to one-half in every market in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. In Mexican free-labour coffee the loss upon exportation would be still more severe. The price in 1826 was seven dollars the arroba, or about 134s. sterling per cwt.! Unless, therefore, foreign coffee is prohibited, or loaded with enormous protecting duties in Mexico, it is obvious that the inhabitants of Vera Cruz could get it from St Domingo and other places, at a price little more than one-third of what they pay for that which is produced on their own fields! The fitness, indeed, of Mr Ward to give the British nation and the British government proper information upon such important subjects is most strikingly exemplified in the statement which he himself makes in the letter so often alluded to regarding the cultivation of coffee, namely, that "the young coffee plants require great care and attention, and must be PROTECTED FROM THE SUN FOR TWO WHOLE YEARS!!" This extraordinary protection certainly may, in some measure, account for the very high price of Mexican coffee! How a British, a Dutch, a French, or a Portuguese, nay, even the thoughtless Sierra Leone coffee planter must smile at information like this! Yet it is to such counsels and to such counsellors. that the British government

and the British nation listen; and it is laws framed upon the crude and erroneous information thus obtained which the anti-colonists in Great Britain call upon the Government to cram down the throats of British subjects settled under the laws of this country in the West Indies! To these remarks I must add, that his rum returns, given as the produce of certain haciendos, are clearly the produce of a concentrated distillery for several haciendos, and not the returns of any one estate, unless that estate turns the whole of the produce of the canes into rum, instead of making any portion of that produce into sugar. The haciendo of Santa Ines, he says, produces 4000 to 4500 barrels annually, which sell for twenty-four dollars the barrel, or about 2s. 6d. per gallon-that is, if the Mexican barrels are of the same size as English barrels, more than double the price which the West Indian planter receives in the market of the mother country for his rum. The annual produce of this haciendo in rum, taking the barrel at forty-two gallons, and the average 4250 barrels, is 188,500 gallons, worth L.23,562 sterling, from 7300 cwt. sugar (taking the average produce of the other haciendos as the produce of Santa Ines)-a quantity of rum which I assert, without the fear of contradiction, it is impossible to produce from such a return, or even from double the return of sugar-a quantity exceeding by three-fourths the quantity which, from such an extent of cultivation, could be obtained in any quarter of the world

The misrepresentation, my Lord Duke,which the leading anti-colonists have spread abroad concerning the increased industry and produce of ST DOMINGO OF HAYTI, since the bloody revolution in that ill-fated island, are well known, and next demand our attention. In vain these false statements, false even upon the face of the documents produced by the enemies of our colonies, were exposed by the voice of truth, and by correct information. The multitude paid scarcely any attention to the refutation; the anti-colonists, detected in one falsehood, had recourse to halfa-dozen more to support their statements; and the Government, beset by their clamours and their influence,

- either doubted or shrunk back from acting upon the truth when put into their hands. At last, however, the truth became known through an official channel which cannot be gainsayed. Mr MacKenzie was some years ago sent out by Mr Canning as our consul to Hayti, with particular instructions to obtain and to transmit

to him accurate accounts regarding the population, the industry, and the produce of Hayti. That gentleman has fulfilled the task committed to his charge in a very clear and satisfactory manner, and the results of his labours have been, after much delay, and to the dismay of the British anti-colonists, drawn forth from the archives of the Foreign-office, by order of the House of Commons, and printed for the information of the members of that House and of the public. To follow Mr MacKenzie in his multifarious details, statistical and others, would far exceed my limits, and is also, I conceive, unnecessary. The leading points in his statements will, therefore, only be referred to as sufficient to overthrow the statements which all our anti-colonial writers have brought forward regarding Hayti. Much, however, as has been disclosed by the papers referred to, darker and more conclusive information still remains behind, in the Report which Mr MacKenzie was commanded and commissioned to make, and which he did make, but which has been suppressed somewhere, and even a review of the whole transmitted for the Quarterly Review, withheld by, it is believed, the official influence which controls that publication. A day of enquiry may, however, come regarding that Report, the contents of it, and why it has been withheld from the sight of the British nation.

In reply to queries put by Mr Canning, Mr MacKenzie proceeds thus:

1st. "Whether the sugar plantations have considerably diminished?" Answer. "They are almost entirely annihilated. The plain of Cul de Sac, which was formerly an immense sugar garden, has now upon it only four plantations of any extent. These are considered the best in the island. Generally speaking, no sugar is manufactured on the estates devoted to the cultivation of the sugar cane; the juice is either in

spissated to a coarse syrup, and sold for common use, or distilled into a very inferior rum called Tafia. The actual state of the plantation called Tor, which belongs to the only surviving daughter of the late President, and is now under the management of the present President, may be considered a picture of the sugar cultivation throughout the whole country.

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Formerly 1700 carreaus (each containing about 350 square French feet) were in canes, above 1500 slaves were employed upon it; three sugar mills were constantly at work, and excellent clayed sugar was made. Now only seven carreaus (about 22 acres) are in cultivation; not fifty labourers are employed, and the only produce is a little syrup and Tafia, which last is retailed in a small shop by the road-side, in front of the President's residence!!" (p. 80.) At page 158, he tells us of the plantation Laborde, that it was one of the most flourishing in the colony, and according to Moreau, St Mery had, in 1789, 1400 slaves, and yielded 1,200,000 lbs. of clayed sugar, besides other produce. People of authority at Cayes declare, that at the commencement of the revolution, there were 2000 slaves upon it, and that the produce was 2,000,000 lbs. of clayed sugar.-I visited it during my stay in Cayes, and found the three sugar mills entirely destroyed and unfit for use. All the dwelling houses, which had been of stone, and most substantial as well as elegant, were unroofed. Only one sugar-house retained its roof, and that was rapidly falling into decay. Not a cane was planted; about sixteen labourers were hanging about, cultivating, I was told, only provisions for their own use; and I saw from a dozen to twenty cattle grazing in one of the Savannahs!" At page 104 he says, "it is estimated that there are about 500 carreaus (1600 acres) in canes, in a wretched state of cultivation, in the whole plain of Cayes. The land is never manured, and scarcely ever weeded, and only a part of each year's produce is converted into molasses. This arises chiefly from idleness; to which may be added, the depredations of cattle, owing to bad fences, and the almost total impossibility of repairing sugar works, from a want of workmen, and the BAD FAITH of all concerned." In the neighbourhood of Grand Goave, Petit Goave, across the country to St Louis and Acquin; the country," says he, "is as rich and beautiful as nature can make it, but the hand of man is rarely perceptible, except in the immediate neighbourhood of some isolated hut or cabin, where a field of Guinea grass, or a small cane piece, may be met

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of the government to enforce labour. The few young females that live on plantations seldom assist in any labour whatever, but live in a CONSTANT STATE OF IDLENESS AND DEBAUCHERY. This is tolerated by the soldiery and the military police, whose licentiousness is gratified by this means.' And he adds, "Hayti, I believe, is the only country IN WHICH CHAIRS ARE PLACED FOR THE SENTRIES ON DUTY; this was introduced in Petion's time, and may be considered a fair specimen of the general system!!"

with. Ruins of former estates occur continually on the road; yet these are frequently the property of the most powerful men in the country. From Gonaives," says he, p. 106, "to Cape Haitien, although the road runs through some of the most luxuriant and beautiful parts of the island, traces of what has been are only to be seen.' In reference to the fine plain of Cul de Sac, he states further, (p. 103,) "I now am warranted by eight months' further experience, to confirm the whole of those statements, and to add that I know several extensive proprietors in the plain of Cul de Sac, who cannot derive a dollar from them, from the difficulty, if not absolute impossibility, of procuring labourers."

Such is the low state of labour in Hayti; and in answer to one of Mr Canning's questions, we learn (p. 81) that the little labour which is found in Hayti, is produced by the following stimulus :

"By law, the use of the whip has been long abolished, but military men have the privilege of using a THICK STICK ; and as all are military proprietors, I apprehend that at present, as it was certainly the case under Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe, corporeal punishment of that kind is very often inflicted, though in opposition to the law; an opposition of practice to theory, not very uncommon in Hayti. I have no evidence that women are ever punished with a whip; but were I to judge from the general conduct of the men to the women, I should be so inclined to infer, that the latter may suffer from the same violation of the law with the men, to which I have just adverted."

At page 105 he again recurs to the system pursued to enforce labour, thus:

"The laws recognise no other punishment than fine, and imprisonment with hard labour, although it is no uncommon thing to see the soldiery, and the military police, use the plat-dc-sabre and coco-macae, (a species of heavy jointed cane,) in a most arbitrary and sometimes cruel manner; but almost always from the natural obstinacy of the negro, WITHOUT THE INTENDED EFFECT!" In the same page, we are informed, that "the very little field labour effected, is generally performed by elderly people, principally old Guinea negroes. No measures of government can induce the YOUNG CREOLES TO LABOUR, or depart from their habitual licentiousness and vagrancy. The whole body of proprietors constantly lament the incapacity

It is unnecessary, my Lord Duke, to add another word, or to make another quotation, to shew and to prove the demoralized and disorganized state of Hayti, where “no measures of the government can enforce labour." The result of this state of things is best shewn by contrasting the extent of the produce of Hayti in 1789, before the Revolution, and in 1826, the date of Mr MacKenzie's mission. The latter is extracted from the official communications already referred to, and the former from the official returns submitted to the Legislative Assembly of France, and other authority as afterwards stated. Produce Hayti. In 1789

In 1826.

Coffee, lbs.

68,151,180 32,189,784

6,286,126

620,972

930,916

150,000

457,592

Tortoise shell,

5,000

8,622

Campeachy

wood,

1,500,000 5,307,745

Tafia, puns.
Tanned hides,
Untanned do.

Tobacco, lbs.
Mahogany, sup.
Cigars,
Yellow ware, lbs.
Bullocks' horns,

Such is the amount and the contrast which the produce of Hayti exhibits at the two periods mentioned! But the returns for 1791, in the autumn of which year the rebellion broke out, exhibit a still superior display of industry and produce. I copy it as given in the Edinburgh Gazetteer, a work of great research and authority: