How
can such a wicked, such an ill-framed system succeed? Has not the
Almighty in his moral government of the world stamped a character upon
human actions, and given such a turn to their operations, that the
balance should be ultimately in favour of virtue? Has he not taken from
those, who act wickedly, the power of discerning the right path? or has
he not so confounded their faculties, that they are for ever frustrating
their own schemes? It is only to know the practice of our planters to be
assured, that it will bring on difficulty after difficulty, and loss
after loss, till it will end in ruin. If a man were to sit down and to
try to invent a ruinous system of agriculture, could he devise one more
to his mind than that which they have been in the habit of using? Let us
look at some of the more striking parts of this system. The first that
stares us in the face, is the unnatural and destructive practice of
_forced labour_. Here we see men working without any rational stimulus
to elicit their exertions, and therefore they must be followed by
drivers with whips in their hands. Well might it be said by Mr. Botham
to the Committees of Privy-council and House of Commons, "Let it be
considered, how much labour is lost by the persons overseeing the forced
labourer, which is saved when he works for his own profit;" and,
notwithstanding all the vigilance and whipping of these drivers, I have
proved that the slaves do more for themselves in an afternoon, than in a
whole day when they work for their masters.
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