The writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ says: "These specific accounts of the several islands are borne out by the statistics and Reports that relate to our West Indies _en masse_. Lest it should be thought that these extracts are carefully culled, to produce a particular impression, and that if the reader had the _whole_ Reports before him, he would find complaints and lamentations, we may at once say that they appear to us to be fair samples of the views entertained by the Governors, and also by other gentlemen acquainted with the West Indies. The language of complaint is no longer heard. Throughout these Colonies, hope and congratulation seem to have taken the place of irritation and despair. In all cases, the later the Report, the more gratifying it is found to be. "To men of business, one fact will seem almost enough by itself to show the sound commercial state of these Colonies; viz., that, in the year 1857, the Colonial Bank received bills from the West Indies to the amount of more than £1,300,000 ($6,298,500); and less than £8,000 ($38,760) were returned. Nor was there a single failure in the West India trade, during the severe commercial crisis of that year. Furthermore, coffee, cotton, wool, sugar, rum, and cocoa, are all exported in increasing quantities. The total exports from Great Britain to the West Indies in 1857 were valued at half a million more ($2,422,500) than the average of the preceding ten years." Mr. C. Buxton made a speech in the British House of Commons, March, 1859, in which he said: "Because labor is free, and trade is free, the West Indies are now rising to a pitch of wealth and happiness unknown before. It would be impossible for me to lay before the House the immense mass of evidence, which demonstrates that fact. I am assured of it by mercantile men, I find it strongly set forth in the Reports from the Governors of the Islands, and in the statistics furnished by the Board of Trade. In the four years between 1853 and 1857, there has been an increase in the exports and imports of the West Indies and Guiana of £4,500,000 ($21,802,500). Considering what mere specks these islands look on the map of America, it is astonishing that their trade to and fro, in the year 1857, should actually amount to £10,735,000 ($52,011,075). It is altogether absurd to suppose this prosperity is owing to the immigration of a few thousand laborers; and in fact the islands which have received no immigrants are quite as flourishing as those that have. Interested parties describe the negroes as barbarous and idle; but I find ample evidence that they are living in a high degree of industry and comfort; though I admit that they somewhat prefer working on freeholds they have purchased, to laboring for hire."