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SINFULNESS OF SLAVERY.
ticular, when the crops of yams and other island provisions failed, the maintenance of so many persons was attended with great expense, while at the same time, perhaps, not more than one-third the number were of any use in agricultural employments. Under the free system, this tie upon the planter is entirely annulled ; for he now employs but a sufficient number of labourers to carry on the estate-work, and the negroes support themselves, as well as their old people and children, out of their weekly earnings and the privileges which they still enjoy upon the properties where they are domiciled. But this diminishment of expense in the cultivation of the sugar-cane is not the only benefit which emancipation has brought to the colony. Setting aside religious principles—which evidently point out the sinfulness of slavery, as it is known among modern nations—there were many, very many circumstances, which tended to render the system obnoxious in the highest degree. I have already spoken of the immorality practised in the West Indies. It is a topic most harrowing to the- feelings, and one that a sensitive mind cannot descant upon. What was the origin of that awful state of society ? Slavery ! Illicit love was not only countenanced, but actually encouraged upon estates between the white masters and their black slaves, in order that the gang of slaves might be enlarged by such unholy means ! In these brighter days of freedom there.is, at least, not this inducement to licentiousness in its most hideous form, and consequently, that degraded state of morals which marked the annals of former years, has, in great measure, disappeared. Again, slavery occasioned the planter immense trouble and perplexities in managing his slaves ; it engendered continual heart-burnings and jealousies ; it soured his temper, rendered him callous, deadened those feelings of humanity which the Spirit of Love has implanted in our breasts, and, however kind and benevolent he might be in his domestic circle, a few months spent in managing slaves, and he forgot