The staple productions of the island, it was vainly surmised, could never be cultivated without the name of slavery; rebellions, massacres, starvation, rapine and bloodshed, danced through the columns of the liberty-hating papers, in mazes of metaphorical confusion.  In short, the name of freedom was, according to their assertions, directly calculated to overthrow our beautiful island, and involve it in one mass of ruin, unequalled in the annals of history!!  But what has been the result?  All their fearful forebodings and horrible predictions have been entirely disproved, and instead of liberty proving a curse, she has, on the contrary, unfolded her banners, and, ere long, is likely to reign triumphant in our land. Banks, steam companies, railroads, charity schools, etc., seem all to have remained dormant until the time arrived when Jamaica was to be enveloped in smoke!  No man thought of hazarding his capital in an extensive banking establishment until Jamaica’s ruin, by the introduction of freedom, had been accomplished!!  No person was found possessed of sufficient energy to speak of navigation companies in Jamaica’s brightest days of slavery; but now that ruin stares every one in the face—­now that we have no longer the power to treat out peasantry as we please, they have taken it into their heads to establish so excellent an undertaking.  Railroads were not dreamt of until darling slavery had (in a great measure) departed, and now, when we thought of throwing up our estates, and flying from the dangers of emancipation, the best projects are being set on foot, and what is worst, are likely to succeed!  This is the way that our Jamaica folks, no doubt, reason with themselves.  But the reasons for the delay which have taken place in the establishment of all these valuable undertakings, are too evident to require elucidation.  We behold the Despatch and Chronicle, asserting the ruin of our island; the overthrow of all order and society; and with the knowledge of all this, they speak of the profits likely to result from steam navigation, banking establishments, and railroads!  What in the name of conscience, can be the use of steam-vessels when Jamaica’s ruin is so fast approaching?  What are the planters and merchants to ship in steamers when the apprentices will not work, and there is nothing doing?  How is the bank expected to advance money to the planters, when their total destruction has been accomplished by the abolition of slavery?  What, in the name of reason, can be the use of railroads, when commerce and agriculture have been nipped in the bud, by that baneful weed, Freedom?  Let the unjust panderers of discord, the haters of liberty, answer.  Let them consider what has all this time retarded the development of Jamaica’s resources, and they will find that it was slavery; yes, it was its very name which prevented the idea of undertakings such as are being brought about.