To arrest this ruinous decline in the commercial prosperity of the islands, emancipation was adopted in 1833 and perfected in 1838. This policy was pursued under the plea, that free labor is doubly as productive as slave labor; and, that the negroes, liberated, would labor twice as well as when enslaved. But what was the result? Ten years after final emancipation was effected, the exports of sugar from Jamaica were only 67,539,200 lbs. a year, instead of 234,700,000 lbs., as in 1805-6. The exports of coffee, during the same year, were reduced to 5,684,921 lbs., instead of 23,625,377 lbs., as in 1805-6; and the extinction of the cultivation of cotton, for export, had become almost complete, though in 1800, it had nearly equaled that of the United States. These are no fancy sketches, drawn for effect, but sober realities, attested by the public documents of the British government.[57] The Jamaica negro, ignorant and destitute of forethought, disappointed the English philanthropists. In Hayti, emancipation had been productive of results, fully as disastrous to its commerce, as it had been to that of Jamaica. There was an almost total abandonment of the production of sugar, soon after freedom was declared. This took place in 1793. In 1790 the island exported 163,318,810 lbs. of sugar. But in 1801 its export was reduced to 18,534,112 lbs., in 1818, to 5,443,765 lbs., and in 1825 to 2,020 lbs.;[58] since which time its export has nearly ceased. Indeed, it is asserted, that, "at this moment there is not one pound of sugar exported from the island, and all that is used is imported from the United States."[59] The exports of coffee, from Hayti, in 1790, were 76,835,219 lbs.; and of cotton, 7,004,274 lbs. But the exports of the former article, in 1801, were reduced to 43,420,270 lbs., and the latter to 474,118 lbs.[60] The exports of coffee have varied, annually, since that period, from thirty to forty million pounds; and the cotton exported has rarely much exceeded one million pounds.[61] At present, "with the exception of Gonaives, there is not a pound of cotton produced, and only a very limited quanity there, barely sufficient for consumption; and instead of exporting indigo, as formerly, they import all they use from the United States."[62] According to the authorities before cited, the deficit of free labor tropical cultivation, as compared with that of slave labor, while sustained by the slave trade, including the British West Indies and Hayti, stands as follows:--a startling result, truly, to those who expected emancipation to work well for commerce, and supersede the necessity of employing slave labor: _Contrast of Slave Labor and Free Labor Exports from the West Indies._ SLAVE LABOR.