roughly in accord with the unanimous feeling of the people of this country, to keep out of this disastrous quarrel as long as it is possible to avoid it. But will it be always possible? Whatever ministry may hold the reins of office will know of a certainty at what price to value the abuse poured upon England by statesmen who require active co-operation from the subjects of a foreign government on a question of purely domestic interest. Our policy is quite

assured,―to remain perfectly neutral until some outrageous act against our national honour, or against the law or interest of nations in general, compels us to assert our influence in arms. Let the Federal Government look to it that they do not so force us. Already there are manifest signs that the old rule of uncontrolled democratic action is at work. Violent men are crying out that enough has not been done, and that the country requires more energetic men and measures. The voice of sensible expostulation has been long hushed. The world trembles at the mutterings of a thunder which, in so many instances in Europe, has ushered in amongst the convulsions of empires the utter extinction of law, of commerce, and even of security for life itself.

29

CHAP. II.

THE NEGRO.

No one can deplore the bitterness of the contest raised by his self-constituted advocates with more justice than the slave himself.

Unless the horrible

and fearful anticipations of the abolition orators we have above noticed, be realised, and the whole wealth and intelligence of the southern portion of the United States be quenched in blood, his condition stands but little chance of amelioration from the efforts of his friends. What has been the result of emancipation without safeguards has been already published to the four quarters of the globe in such graphic terms that we make no apology for inserting them.

"In the United States there are 4,000,000 of these blacks, who, as slaves, are eminently useful to themselves and to humanity at large. To emancipate them is to convert 4,000,000 productive workers into as many idle paupers. Who is to support those

paupers in their idleness, which with them is synonymous with freedom? In the West Indies they eat the spontaneous fruits of the earth; in the United States there are none for them to eat. That the blacks are now kept to work as northern white apprentices and paupers are kept to work, for their own and society's benefit, is true; in that respect the institution operates as a great workhouse, where the naturally idle are compelled to contribute their share to the services of mankind."

"The highest rewards, political and social, have been in the island of Jamaica vainly held out to the black to induce him to work. John Bigelow, Esq., in his letters to the Evening Post, afterwards embodied in a book on the condition of Jamaica, with the best intentions in the world to favour the black, showed conclusively that labour is the last thing he will undertake. The land is, if not the most prolific, at least as much so as any in the world. It may be bought from $5 to $10 per acre, and the possession of five acres confers the right of voting and eligibility to public offices. The planters offer freely $1.50 per day for labour; sixteen days' labour will buy such a piece of land, and the market of Kingston offers a great demand for vegetables at all times.

These facts, stated by Mr. Bigelow, place independence within the reach of every black, yet what are the results? there has been no increase of black voters in the last twenty years; the land runs wild; King, ston gets its vegetables from the United States, even from New York; and 50,000 coolies have been imported to raise sugar on the plantations, the sensual black, meanwhile, basking in the sun, and feeding on yams and pumpkins. That is black nature. The omnipotent Deity, who placed those blacks under white control will not hold those guiltless who have from hope of greater gain shirked from the responsibility of masters, and allowed them to sink back to their savage condition."*

"There is no blinking the truth. Years of bitter experience; years of hope deferred; of self-devotion unrequited; of poverty; of humiliation; of prayers unanswered; of suffering derided; of insults unresented; of contumely patiently endured, have convinced us of the truth. It must be spoken out loudly and energetically, despite the wild mockings of howling cant.' The freed West India slave will not till the soil for wages; the free son of the ex-slave is as obstinate as his sire. He will not cultivate lands which he has not bought for

*Trollope's "West India Islands."

his own. Yams, mangoes, and plantains- those satisfy his wants; he cares not for yours. Cotton, sugar, coffee, and tobacco he cares but little for. And what matters it to him that the Englishman has sunk his thousands and tens of thousands on mills, machinery, and plant, which now totter on the languishing estate that for years has only returned beggary and debt! He eats his yams and sniggers at buckra.

"We know not why this should be, but it is so. The negro has been bought with a price-the price of English taxation and English toil. He has been redeemed from bondage by the sweat and travail of some millions of hard-working Englishmen. Twenty millions of pounds sterling-one hundred millions of dollars have been distilled from the brains and muscles of the free English labourer of every degree to fashion the West India negro into a free and independent labourer.' Free and independent' enough he has become, God knows; but labourer he is not, and, so far as we can see, never will be. He will sing hymns and quote texts, but honest, not only detests but despises. We wish to heaven that some people in England—neither Government people, nor parsons, nor clergymen, but some just

steady industry he