“He will, I am sure,” added his mother, “if he has any idea how we dread losing him. Mary, love, you have more influence than anybody with your brother; you can persuade him to return to us.” Mary looked up through her tears, while she replied that she believed her brother had long weighed the duty of living on his estate against other claims; and she hoped he would do what he thought right, and then it was certain he would come back if he could. Alfred declared that it was a great grief to him to leave his family so soon, and that he should return as speedily and as often as possible to visit them; but that he could not promise to reside permanently anywhere but on his own estate. His father observed that there were plenty of agents to be had, and that he was sorry some friends of his in England had prejudiced his son against management by agents. Alfred observed that, believing, as he did, that the non-residence of proprietors was the curse of the West Indies, he could not conscientiously add his weight to the burden. Neither was he at all sure that he could afford the heavy expenses of agency, or that any of the plans for which he had been expressly educated could be fairly tried without his superintendence. Whatever might be the honesty and obedience of an agent, and however strong his own confidence in one recommended by his father, it was impossible that any man should discern his views so clearly or take so warm an interest in their issue, as himself. It appeared to him that a critical period in the state of his slave population had arrived, and he could not forgive himself if he gave the management into other hands. “I am glad you are aware,” said his father, “that Barbadoes is little like Demerara. What you have seen here affords no rule for what you are to do there.” “One kind of rule, perhaps,” said Alfred, smiling; “the rule of contrary. Here soils are fertile, there barren; here the slave population decreases as rapidly as it increases there; here slaves are very valuable, there they are worth little; here they are manumitted at the average of 27, there of 125 in a year, the impediment of a heavy tax remaining in each.” “Then you had rather have an estate in Barbadoes than here,” said Mary, “whatever your profits may be?” “Much rather. Slavery, like other institutions, is only enforced where it is worth enforcing; and since it is found less worth enforcing in Barbadoes than elsewhere, I shall meet with the less opposition to measures which I should have adopted wherever my estate had happened to lie. I do not despair of inducing some of my neighbours to make free labourers of their blacks, if, as I expect, they already find that they are of little value as slaves.” “The reason why they are so little valuable,” said Mr. Bruce, “is that there is less sugar grown in Barbadoes than in any of the colonies which grow sugar at all.”