Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/93

Rh 4,000 barrels are manufactured upon the owners account, the speculation is found to be a very lucrative one, as the barrel sells in Mexico for thirty-two dollars, and is worth twenty-four net, after paying both duties and carriage.

The possibility of cultivating the sugar-cane beneath the Tropics by a system of free labour, has often been canvassed, but I know no country except Mexico where the experiment has been fairly tried upon a large scale. The plantations of Cuernavaca, were all worked, in the first instance, by slaves, who were purchased at Veracruz, at from three to four hundred dollars each. The difficulty of ensuring a sufficient supply during a war with a maritime power, and the number of slaves who perished from the sudden change of climate on the road from the coast, induced several of the great proprietors to endeavour to propagate a race of free labourers, by giving liberty to a certain number of slaves annually, and encouraging them to intermarry with the native Indians, which they soon did to a very great extent.

The plan was found to be so economical, that, on many of the largest estates, there was not a single slave in the year 1808; but the policy of the measure became still more apparent in 1810, for, as soon as the Revolution broke out, those planters who had not adopted the system of gradual emancipation, were abandoned, at once, by their slaves, and forced, in some instances, to give up working their estates; while those who had provided themselves,