Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/577

 ? Those are the questions which now profoundly occupy the attention of her statesmen, and have the greatest Influence over her councils.

"In order to regain her superiority, she not only seeks to revive and increase her own capacity to produce tropical productions, but to diminish and destroy the capacity of those who have so far outstripped her in consequence of her error. In pursuit of the former, she has cast her eyes to her East India possessions — to Central and Eastern Africa — with the view of establishing colonies there, and even to restore, substantially, the slave-trade itself, under the specious name of transporting her free laborers from Africa to her West India possessions, in order, if possible, to compete successfully with those who have refused to follow her suicidal policy. But these all afford but uncertain and distant hopes of recovering her lost superiority. Her main reliance is on the other alternative — to cripple or destroy the productions of her successful rivals. There is but one way by which it can be done, and that is by abolishing African slavery throughout this continent; and that she openly avows to be the constant object of her policy and exertions. It matters not how, or from what motive, it may be done — whether it be by diplomacy, influence, or force; by secret or open means; and whether the motive be humane or selfish, without regard to manner, means, or motive. The thing itself, should it be accomplished, would put down all rivalry, and give her the undisputed supremacy in supplying her own wants, and those of the rest of the world; and thereby more than fully retrieve what she lost by her errors. It would give her the monopoly of tropical productions, which I shall next proceed to show.

"What would be the consequence if this object of her unceasing solicitude and exertions should be effected by the abolition of negro slavery throughout this continent, some idea may be formed from the immense diminution of productions, as has been shown, which has followed abolition in her West India possessions. But, as great as that has been, it is nothing compared with what would be the effect, if she should succeed in abolishing slavery in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil, and throughout this continent. The experiment in her own colonies was made under the most favorable circumstances. It was brought about gradually and peaceably by the steady and firm operation of the parent country, armed with complete power to prevent or crush at once all insurrectionary movements on the part of the negroes, and able and disposed to maintain to the full, the political and social ascendency of the former masters over their former slaves. It is not at all wonderful that the change of the relation of master and slave took place, under such circumstances, without violence and bloodshed, and that order and peace should have been since preserved. Very different would be the result of abolition should it be effected by her influence and exertions in the possessions of other countries on this continent — and especially in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil, the great cultivators of the principal tropical products of America. To form a correct conception of what would be the result with them, we must look, not to Jamaica, but to St. Domingo, for example. The change would be followed by unforgiving hate between the two races, and end in a bloody and deadly struggle between them