The more especially, as,
requiring, by necessity or habit, slave labor for their production, the
capital necessary to carry on the work of this production is very
considerable. The West Indies are resorted to, therefore, rather for the
investment of capital than for the purpose of sustaining life by
personal labor. Such as possess a considerable amount of capital, or
such as choose to adventure in commercial speculations without capital,
can alone be fitted to be emigrants to the islands. The agriculture of
these regions, as before observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is a
species of employment in which labor seems to form an inconsiderable
ingredient in the productive causes, since the portion of white labor is
exceedingly small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stock
or capital than _labor_ properly so called. The individual who
undertakes an establishment of this kind takes into the account the cost
of the necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he calculates
the cost of the land. The uncertainty, too, of this species of
employment, affords another ground of resemblance to commerce. Although
gainful on the whole, and in a series of years, it is often very
disastrous for a single year, and, as the capital is not readily
invested in other pursuits, bad crops or bad markets not only affect the
profits, but the capital itself. Hence the sudden depressions which take
place in the value of such estates.
But the great and leading observation, relative to these establishments,
remains to be made.
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