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It had for a long time been stoutly proclaimed that the abolition of
slavery must be the destruction of our West Indian colonies. Years had
elapsed and the West Indian colonies still survived. Now the cry of
alarm was taken up again, and it was prophesied that although they had
got over the abolition of slavery they never could survive the
equalization of the sugar duties. Jamaica certainly had fallen greatly
away from her period of temporary and factitious prosperity. Jamaica was
owned and managed by a class of proprietors who resembled in many ways
some of the planters of the States of America farthest south--of the
States toward the mouth of the Mississippi. They lived in a kind of
careless luxury, mortgaging their estates as deeply as they possibly
could, throwing over to the coming year the superabundant debts of the
last, and only managing to keep their heads above water so long as the
people of England, by favoring them with a highly protective system,
enabled them still to compete against those who grew sugar on better and
more economical plans.


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