It is intended, that a proportion of the capital sunk in the lands and buildings of each estate shall be added to the value of each slave. Earl Bathurst, in his despatch to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, of the 25th February, 1826, says:— “If, in the process of time, it should be unfortunately found, that the slaves thus manumitted altogether abandon their owners, and refuse to work as free persons, the owner not having the means, by reason of the Abolition Act, to supply the loss of his slaves, and not being able to engage any free labourer for his sugar-plantations, the price which must then be assigned to the loss of each slave must have a direct reference to that state in which the plantation will be placed by the progressive reduction of the means of cultivating it.” Under this plan it will be the _deserving_ slaves who will have to pay for the lands and buildings. The higher the personal value of the slave, the greater is his _relative_ utility to the plantation, and the greater must be the recompense awarded to the proprietor for superseded cultivation. The relative utility of a negro of bad character may thus be estimated at not more than ten pounds, while that of a trustworthy individual may rise so high as one hundred and fifty. In both these cases, the respective sums have to be added to the slave’s personal value, before his master can be said to have received an equivalent for his liberation. If the personal value of a slave of bad character be estimated at 50_l._, the compensation of 10_l._ for his _relative_ utility to the plantation being added, will make a sum of 60_l._ only, as the price of his manumission. If the personal value of the skilful and zealous slave be estimated at 300_l._, the equivalent of 150_l._ for his _relative_ utility to the plantation being added, will require as much as 450_l._ to be raised for the purchase of his manumission. Here the impediment is increased from six to eight fold. But there is yet further injustice. Not only are different descriptions of cultivation carried on in the colonies, but the same species of cultivation may greatly vary on estates contiguous to each other, from difference of soil, or other local circumstances. Accordingly as those circumstances are more or less favourable, in a corresponding proportion will be the value of the slave, and the appraisers will be called upon to adjust this value, thus varying in different districts of the same colony.