“Want of contracts operates injuriously in another way still, besides those we have mentioned; it is found that immigrants for the first six months require much care and attention, and also considerable outlay, because they then undergo a seasoning to the climate. Now, planters are not inclined to take a man from the ship under the prospect of paying more for medical attendance, wine, and nourishment, than his labour is worth, provided he is at liberty to depart as soon as he finds himself strong enough. The impolicy of refusing to us the privilege of entering into agreements for at least twelve months, out of the colony, is herein exemplified, and there is considerable reason to fear that there will be great backwardness in applying for the next batches of Coolies on this account, as they will not enter into contracts here. Every man says, ‘I am not in a hurry, I shall wait until I can get seasoned people.’ It is well known that of the last lots of Portuguese and Coolies; (those of 1845-6,) nearly one-half have been since that period on the sick list, most of them not seriously ill, but in that feeble and inert state which change of climate is apt to produce.” From all this, and from the experience of centuries, it is evident that the African alone is physically suited to undergo with case and without danger the fatigue of field labour in the climates which are suited for sugar cultivation. We shall presently allude to the obstacles which have been thrown in the way of obtaining a supply of free labour from that quarter; and we think we shall be able to convince the most scrupulous reader, that the line of conduct adopted by the pseudo friends of the African, is one most admirably calculated to foster the state of barbarism, cruelty, ignorance, oppression, and crime, which is the melancholy characteristic of the inhabitants of that unhappy country. In the meantime, let us go back to the history of our colonies, whose singular case of unmerited persecution is by no means yet brought to a close. In 1842, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the state of the West India colonies, and from their report, which is now before us, we make the following extracts. Resolved,— That, unhappily, there has occurred, simultaneously with the amendment in the condition of the negroes, a very great diminution in the staple productions of the West Indies, to such an extent as to have caused serious, and, in some cases, ruinous injury to the proprietors of estates in those colonies.