inveterate vulgar prejudice. He has indeed accomplished all that was
really doubtful or difficult in the undertaking, and perhaps all that is
at present desirable either for owner or slave; for he has ascertained
as a fact, what was before only known to the learned as a theory, and to
practical men as a paradox, that _the paying of slaves for their labour
does actually produce a very great profit to their owners_."

I have now proved (_as far as the plan[15] of Mr. Steele is concerned_)
my third proposition, or _the probability that emancipation would
promote the interests of those who should adopt it_; but as I know of no
other estate similarly circumstanced with that of Mr. Steele, that is,
where emancipation has been tried, and where a detailed result of it has
been made known, I cannot confirm it by other similar examples. I must
have recourse therefore to some new species of proof. Now it is an old
maxim, as old as the days of Pliny and Columella, and confirmed by Dr.
Adam Smith, and all the modern writers on political economy, that _the
labour of free men is cheaper than the labour of slaves_. If therefore I
should be able to show that this maxim would be true, if applied to all
the operations and demands of West Indian agriculture, I should be able
to establish my proposition on a new ground: for it requires no great
acuteness to infer, that, if it be cheaper to employ free men than
slaves in the cultivation of our islands, emancipation would be a
profitable undertaking there.

I shall show, then, that the old maxim just mentioned is true, when
applied to the case in our own islands, first, by establishing the fact,
that _free men_, people of colour, in the East Indies, are employed in
_precisely the same concerns_ (the cultivation of the cane and the
making of sugar) as the slaves in the West, and that they are employed
_at a cheaper rate_. The testimony of Henry Botham, Esq. will be quite