The contest for the advantages of supplying the increasing demands for cotton, is between Great Britain operating in India and Africa, and the American planter operating by an increased amount of labor furnished by means of the slave trade. The contest between the parties may be imagined as assuming this form: A portion of the American planters insist, that they should be allowed to manage this matter; but Great Britain says, nay: my subjects can do it better than you can. You Americans are governed by mercenary motives: we Britons by philanthropic intentions. You Americans have made no sacrifices for the cause of humanity: we Britons have emancipated our West India slaves. Aye, aye, replies the American planter; we understand all about the humanity of which you boast. Your special type of philanthropy is fully displayed in the history of your West Indies. Look at it. The total importation of slaves from Africa into your West Indian Islands, was 1,700,000 persons; of whom and their descendants, in 1833, only 660,000 remained for emancipation; we had less than 400,000 imported Africans, of whom and their descendants there existed among us, in 1850, more than 3,600,000 persons of African descent; that is to say, the number of Africans and their descendants in the United States, is nearly eight or ten to one of those that were imported, whilst in the British West Indies there are not two persons remaining for every five imported.[37] And besides, we have 500,000 free colored persons among us, a number nearly equal to that which your emancipation act set at liberty, and more than the whole number imported. Your slavery seems to have been a system of wholesale slaughter: ours the reverse. All true, says Britain: but then we have ceased to do evil, and are learning to do well. We found "that slavery was bearing our colonies down to ruin with awful speed; that had it lasted but another half century, they must have sunk beyond recovery."[38] What! says the planter; sunk beyond recovery! why, we find our slaves rapidly increasing, and ourselves almost "made of gold." Be pleased to explain, why slavery in the hands of Englishmen should be so destructive, while with the American it is not only profitable to the slaveholder himself, but the comfort of the slaves has been so well secured, from the first, that their natural increase has been about equal to that of any other people in the full enjoyment of the necessaries of life.