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Show 244 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. overtake them. We might easily adduce many impressive extracts from his work; but, for the sake of brevity, we shall confine our attention to one or two passages. "llope," says 11fr. Baird, "delights to brighten the prospects of the future; and thus it is that the British West Indian planter goes on from year to year, struggling against his downward progress, ancl still hoping that something may yet turn up to retrieve his ruiuecl fortunes. But all do not struggle on. Many have given in, and many more can aml will confirm the' statement of a venerable friend of my own · -a gentleman high in office in one of the islands above-mentionecl-who, when showing me his own estate and sugar-works, assured me, that for above a quarter of a century they had yielcled him nearly £2000 per annum; and that now, despite all his efforts and improvements, (which were many,) he could scarcely manage to make the cultivation pay itself. Instances of this kind might be multiplied till the reader was tired, and even heart-sick, of such details. But what need of such? Is it not notorious? Has it not been proved by the numerous failures that have taken place of late years among our most ARGUMENT FROM TilE Pl"DLIC OOOD. 2-15 extensive West Indian merchants? Are not the reports of almost all the governors of our colonial possessions filled with statements to the effect that great depreciation of property has taken place . in all and each of our West Indian colonies, ancl that great has been the distt·ess consequent thereupon? These governors are, of course, all of them imbued, to some extent, with the ministerial policy-at least it is reasonable to assume that they arc so. At all events, whether they arc so or not, their position almost necessitates their doing their utmost to carry out, with success, the ministerial views and general policy. To embody the substance of the answer given by a talented lieutenant-governor, in my own hearing, to an address which set forth, somewhat strongly, the ruined prospects ancl wasted fortunes of tho colonists under his government: 'It must, or it ought to he, the object and the dcsii'O of every governor or lieutenant-governor in the British West Indian Islands, to disappoint and stultify, if he can, the prognostications of coming ruin with which the addresses he receives from time to time are continually charged?' Yet what say these governors? Do not tbc reports of one and all of them confirm tho 21• |