Certainly, says Britain: having done our duty, we are free to confess, that "what gave the death blow to slavery, in the minds of English statesmen, was the population returns, which showed the fact, 'the appalling fact,' that although only eleven out of the eighteen islands had sent them in, yet in those eleven islands the slaves had decreased in twelve years, by no less than 60,219, namely: from 558,194 to 497,975![39] Had similar returns been procured from the other seven colonies (including Mauritius, Antigua, Barbadoes, and Granada,) the decrease must have been little, if at all, less than 100,000! Now it was plain to every one that if this were really so, the system could not last. The driest economist would allow that it would not pay, to let the working classes be slaughtered. To work the laboring men of our West Indies to death, might bring in a good return for a while, but could not be a profitable enterprise in the long run. Accordingly, this was the main, we had almost said the only, topic of the debates on slavery in 1831 and 1832. Is slavery causing a general massacre of the working classes in our sugar islands, or is it not, was a question worth debating, in the pounds, shillings, and pence view, as well as in the moral one. And debated it was, long and fiercely. The result was the full establishment of the dreadful fact. The slaves, as Mr. Marryatt said, were 'dying like rotten sheep.' Whatever then may be said for West Indian slavery, this damning thing must be said of it, that _the slaves were dying of it_. Then came emancipation."[40] And in performing this act--in demonstrating to the world the destructive character of slavery--Englishmen expected America to follow their example, and to emancipate her slaves also.