Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/23

15 upon it would be about 4,200l., the people being two hundred and fourteen. It was bought within the last year for 9,000/. by a person to whom local circumstances gave it an extra value. Here we have a disappearance of 100,000l 

The Campbell estates in Jamaica are termed Holland, Fishriver, and Petersville. On the death of their possessor in 1821, they were charged with legacies and annuities to the amount of 63,000l. They were mortgaged at the time for 81,000l. Assuming the whole to have been absorbed under these heads, we have a value thus indicated of 144,000l. The compensation upon the three did not reach 14,000l. The estates or shares in them have changed hands under the apprenticeship, at prices the aggregate of which is 29,000l., leaving unaccounted for, the sum of 101,000l. I am not aware of anything in these cases which renders them exceptional.

I proceed to another case, which I believe represents West Indian property under the most favourable aspects, and which does exhibit the effect of the Abolition Law upon its value. The facts lie entirely within my own knowledge. A planter holding four estates in British Guiana estimated them, in the year 1831, at 300,000l. The estimate is more than justified by the fact, that in the year 1826 a moiety of two of these four estates, which were worth about one-third part of the entire 300,000l., was sold for 75,000l.; and that the number of people, upon the whole, being one thousand three hundred and ten, is demon-