"With regard to Jamaica, I do not mean to say that the estates have anything like a sufficiency of labor. I merely wish to give point-blank denial to a very general impression, that the Jamaica negroes will not work at all. Nine out of ten rely principally upon their own properties for the support of themselves and their families; but they are willing, nevertheless, to work for the estates, or on the roads, when it does not interfere with necessary labor on their own lands. When the choice lies between the roads and the estates, it is not surprising that they should select the employer that _pays best and most regularly_. The Jamaica negro gives as much labor, even to the sugar estates, as he consistently can, and it is no fault of his if he cannot give enough. They are a peaceable, law-abiding peasantry, with whom the remembrance of past wrongs has had so little weight that, from the day of emancipation until now, they have never dreamed of a hostile combination, either against their old masters, or the government under which they live; though in the time of slavery, insurrections were numerous and terrible. The condition of the Jamaica peasants in 1860 is a standing rebuke to those who, wittingly or unwittingly, encourage the vulgar lie, that the African cannot possibly be elevated. The dissolute idlers, loafers, and vagabonds, that congregate in Kingston and other towns, are as different from their country brethren, as the rowdy of New York city is different from the honest farmers of the State." COMPARATIVE CHEAPNESS OF FREE LABOR. "No Barbadian planter, in 1859, would hesitate to select free labor in preference to slave labor, as in his belief the more economical of the two. Every planter in Jamaica knows from his own books, if they go back far enough, that free labor is cheaper than slave labor. He knows that the cultivation of an acre of cane does not now cost him $40, when in other times it cost him $80. He knows that under slavery, the digging an acre of cane-holes cost from $35 to $45, while under freedom it is from $8 to $15. He knows that under one system 30 per cent. of his laboring force were non effectives, and had to be fed and clothed like the rest; while under freedom no work is paid for that is not actually performed. He knows that a free laborer is not bought, and that the sum he would cost can be otherwise laid out at profitable interest. He knows that it is no longer necessary to make allowance of ten or even fifteen per cent. for death or depreciation. These are facts readily admitted, and whoever takes the trouble to think will see their force."