The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-05-08 00:00:00

WEST' INDIES.

The following article is sufficiently intelligible and
alarming to require any comments or amplificatiOns from
us. We take it from the Guiana Chronicle of the 9th
March last. We said, because we believed from the first,
that negro emancipation would prove a failure—a ruinous
experiment as regards the planters and proprietors, and
a curse to the negroes themselves. Every succeeditig
account, we regret to say, only confirms that opinion.
Demerara, next to Jamaica, is the most important colony
belonging to the English crown ; but we have every
reason to fear that unless we change our measures it
will be soon of as little value to Eagland as St. Domingo
is now to France :

"Every day the prospects of West Indian colonists are
getting more gloomy and unpropitious. Each hour, as it passes
along, but tends, to develope the unsuccessful and ruinous re-
sults of that fatal experiment which portends the downfall of
these possessions. Many months have now passed since the
apprenticeship system came into operation, and sufficient time
has elapsed to have given the measure a fair trial. On its corn-
menceinent,•the friends of the measure excused, or attempted
to excuse, the insubordination and revolt of the negroes, by de-
claring that, in the first instance, a little excitement was to be
expected, until the negroes properly understood the nature of
the change, but that they would soon settle down to obedience
and industry. Months have now elapsed—but has this been the
result ? We feel assured that no man of common sense can
answer us in the affirmative. But, we may ask again, are the
negroes even improving in their conduct, and gradually, but
slowly, progressing towards that desirable state of obedience
and industry so freely promised to us by the ema.ncipatiohists,
but which we have now so long looked for in vain that, hope de-
ferred has at length generated despair.
"Throughout the whole of this colony, from the Pomeroon to
the Corentyne,.there is not one single estate on which the ne-
groesmay be said to work cheerfully and contentedly. That
there are estates on which they perform their allotted task, we
admit--although that task has been reduced to the minimum of
what can with justice be called a day's labour—but they do this
from a feeling of dread and terror; but on no one plantation in
this extensive colony can a cheerful, contented, sober, and indus-
trious labouring population be found. A dogged sullenness is care-
fully nurtured in their bosoms, and an obstinate determination
to perform only so much work as will barely save them from
punishment, pervades their whole conduct. The negro, now,
performs not his work as if he were gratefully repaying his
master, by his labour, for the manifold comforts and indulgeu-
cies he is daily receiving from his hands; but he goes to his
occupation as the galley convict applies himself to his oar—sul-
lenly, unwillingly, and determined to de as little as he possibly
dare. This is a faithful picture of our labouring population,
where a semblance of subordination is still maintained, and
where the laws, through fear, and not from witting obedience,
are still obeyed. But examples are hot wanting in this colony,
where even this outward appearance of quiet does not exist, but
where insubordination reigns undisguised, and disobedience of
all authority, and disrespect of the existing laws are openly
exhibited. Look at La. Penitence, at this moment, and say,
is the law there respected—are industry and obedience to be
found in that whole gang? Has not correction followed cor-
rection, and punishment succeeded punishment uselessly ?
Have not courts been held on that estate almost daily, without
producing the slightest effect? It is lamentable to state that
these are facts admitting of no contradiction; it is painful to.
say that the determined spirit of insubordination existing in
that gang is still wholly unchecked, and that the chairman of
the district has been reluctantly compelled to declare that the
powers vested in him by the ordinance were totally insufficient
to crush it down.

" Unfortunately, likewise, the baneful example of these
negroes has, and is continuing to, spread rapidly. It would be
madness to suppose that it could be otherwise. The negro
seizes, with the utmost cunning and avidity, upon the slightest
pretext he can form, to avoid -labour; and, if he beholds the
negroes of one estate defying the laws with impunity, perform-
ing what work they please, and no more, and selecting their
own hours to do it in, he will not; be assured, be tardy in fol-
lowing an example which promises to secure to him benefits,
which he prizes above all ether earthly comforts—remission
from labour, and time to repose. Already some accounts from
Mahaica, received this morning, informs us, that the insubordi-
nation of the La Penitence gang is fully matched by the re-
fractory conduct of the negroes on a property in that district—
they having, in a similar manner, thrown off the mask of obe-
dience they had assumed through fear, and openly defied au-
thority. The manager of this property writes to his employer
(the proprietor) to say, that the.negroes under his charge are
determined to do what quantity of labour they choose, and
leave, or go into, the field at pleasure, and that no obedience
whatever is shown to his authority. We say again and again,
that these baneful examples will spread to the total ruin of the
colonies, unless some energetic measures are promptly taken
to arrest and subdue the evil spirit. We behold .an edifice in
flames, and unless we take both measures of precaution and
make attempts to extinguish the fire, can we reasonably sup-
pose otherwise than that it will increase and involve other man-
sions in the same ruin ? Just so in the present instance, ex-
amples of unchecked insubordination and disobedience are
openly before the whole labouring population—the ordinance
is found insufficient to suppress the evil, and it therefore con-
tinues unabated ; and can we doubt but that the contagion will
spread far and wide, unless the most summary measures be im-
mediately adopted to check its baneful career.
"The existence of the evil has been made known to the Execu-
tive in the most formal manner—nay his Excellency has beheld
it with his own eyes : fearful then will be his responsibility, if he
treats with indifference the warnings he has received, and con-
tinues deaf to every thing but the adulating addresses of the
fawning parasites and sycophants around him at Camp-house."