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Show ANTIGUA. lied with lod<ring, boarding, and medical care. This admirabpl e .m st1. tutw. n, "w lu.c h 11 oun.s hes under his .o w. n supennten.d ence, 1.s supported par tl Y by voluntary snbscnptwns, and pnhr tly by ts of the local legislature. We. now proceeded to t e state ghroauns e where we were I. n t ro duced to several o. f the leadi.n g officm. 'l s, an d 1l.S te ne d to a debate in the local leg1sluture. , wh!C. hh was then m. ses.s w. n. A colored member was pleadm. g Wlt " honorable mem be 1~ " '1o1 i· the refundinOo' of expenses mcurred in mak.m g a certru. n roa d . The appl icution was refu.s ed o. n the ()"round that "this house" could pay for no roads whlch d•d not lead to some sugar estate-an obvious rehc of the old system. A drive of eight miles over a flat country, well cul\lvated, artly with provisions, and partly with sugar cane, brought us ;o " Gilberts"-the. spacious old mansion, and one of the sugar estates, o f our f rJ. en d Nathaniel Gilbert ' who w1th h1s pwus a.n d agreeable lady, freely offered us their house for a home, dunng any part of our stay on the island. N othmg could be more satisfactory than the state of the property. ~Is molasses alone, lust yeor, paid the whole expenses of the estate, mcludmg labor ; the large produce of sugar, which had met Wllh a hi h price in the British market, was therefore clear g'un. O~r friend is too consistent a Christian, to manufacture rum. We understood that he received $25,000 as a compensatiOn for his slaves. He assured us that this sum was "mere prcsent put into his pocket-a gratuity on which he had no reasonable claim. Since his land, without the slaves, is at least of the same value as it was with the slaves, before emancipation, and since his profits are increased, rather than diminished, this consequence follows of course ; but what figures can represent the relief which he experiences in his own emancipation from the trammels of slaveholding? Our friend has built a neat chapel ·on his estate, in which we held a religious meeting in the evening, with his black peasantry. The subject which arose before us, was the rest of heaven. The negroes listened w1th reve· rent attention, and after our meeting was finished, they broke ANTIGUA. 45 out, under the guidance of their beloved "mistress," into a sweet sounding hymn, which had reference to the same topic. Sir Bethel Codrington, an absentee proprietor, whose land borders on "Gilberts," is said to be deriving £20,000 sterling, per annum, from his sugar estates, in Antigua. Whether this statement is exaggerated or not, I cannot say; but there can be no question, that his revenues, from this source, are very large. He was a noted advocate, during the late conflict for freedom, in our country, for the continuance of slavery. Circumstances have now proved, that emancipation to hirn, has been anything rather than the road to min. Nearly the same remark applies to a respectable member of parliament, whose property in Antigua, during slavery, was in decay-unprofitable and by all accounts, almost ruinous. Now it produces an excellent income. I had the pleasure of viewing his cane fields ; they were in fine order, full of pecuniary promise. I understood-from our friend Gilbert, that during slavery, half his people were operative, at one time, and half dead weight, i. c. doing nothing ; when freedom came, the rate of wages was so arranged by the planters, that the amount paid to the working half, should just equal the expense formerly incurred in supporting the whole body. Thus twenty slaves, at £5 per head, per annum, and ten free laborers at £10. per head, per annum, would amount to the same sum of £100. In that case the only saving by the change would result from the circumstance, that each free laborer, under the inducement of wages, would do more work than a slave by coercion, especially when (as in the case of N. Gilbert) the coercion was gentle. But had our friend's operative portion of slaves, been only one-third, instead of a half, and the number of his free laborers the same, his saving would have been 33t per cent. Now a subsequent and somewhat extensive enquiry has led us to the conviction, that on most of the properties of Antigua, and in general throughout the West Indies, one-third only of the slaves were operative. What with childhood, age, infhmity, siclmess, sham sickness, |