Star.
London, England, 1824-12-10 00:00:00

•
•state, as Mr. Steele himself states, had been ruinonsl)
mismatraged, and when the crops annually failed, in con-
sequerice of drought, blight, etc. However, it has been ,
sliewn that Mr. Steele only introduced the plan on the
estate where his slaves were liable to be attached for
his debts, and that he always worked the other by the
usual Slave system. The clear inf.srence to be drawn
from this is, that he found the slave system the more
productive of the two. Again, I have exposed the
mistakes on which ANOLU9 has founded his statement,
and shown, that at the very period when ANGLIJ alleges
that 4j per cent. profit was realized, Mr. Steele was
complaining of his "ruinous crops," some of which never
came to anything at all.
2,1. It is said, that the slaves laboured at a cheaper
rate for wages than they did tinder the stimulus of the
whip, when the labour of slaves was contracted for,
with an unda taker of such work, commonly called a
jobber, having a task gang.
It is a hackneyed saying, but none the less an esta._
truth, that he who holds his lights at tha o ill
of another, has no rights. The Slaves, under Mr. Steele's
" general plan," had no rights, and when they had the
choice on the one hand of Mousing for whatever Mr.
Steele might cause to give them, or on the other of im-
mediately reverting to the Slavaosystern, which to them,
as was alleged, had previously been so severe, as to cause
their destruction, it would indeed be surprising had
they refused to labour.
It has been moreover proved, that the allowances
made by Mr. Steele to his slaves,w ere-in no degree ana-
logous to the wages of free labour ; and that they af-
ford no data whatever, even in this particular instance,
by which the comparative expenses of free and slave-
labour can be estimated.
3d, The important mitigations of slavery effected by
Mr. Steele have been pointed out.
I have shewn that those, however important in their
day, are absolutely contemptible when compared with
the great measures now in progress.
4th, It is said that the slaves increased under the
"general plan," while they had before diminished.
Tnis was probably the case. Mr. Steele informs us
how much he had suffered by previous mismanagement
in the " destruction of his negroes," His attention was
therefore, of course,directed to this particular point ; and
the mortality was less, and the births more numerous,
than when less care was taken of the slaves. No general
inference can be drawn from this, that would not be sug-
gested by common sense,without reference to Mr. Steele s
experiment.
sth, The Copyhold System is held up as worthy of
imitation.
On the one hand, I have shewn that Amass artd Mr.
Clarkson had little or no correct information with re-
spect to the Copyhold System established in 1789,while
on the other hand it appears, on the respectable testi-
mony of Mr. Sealy and the Attorney-General of Barba-
does, that the results were disastrous; and the testimony
afforded by these two last-mentioned Gentlemen, is cer-
tainly not weakened by the sudden and unexplained si-
lence of Mr. Steele, ever after the establishment of the
Copyhold system.—l remain, Sir, your obedient Servant,
VINDEX.