It is not strange, that, when men’s minds were turned to the settlement of America, different objects should be proposed by those who emigrated to the different regions of so vast a country.  Climate, soil, and condition were not all equally favorable to all pursuits.  In the West Indies, the purpose of those who went thither was to engage in that species of agriculture, suited to the soil and climate, which seems to bear more resemblance to commerce than to the hard and plain tillage of New England.  The great staples of these countries, being partly an agricultural and partly a manufactured product, and not being of the necessaries of life, become the object of calculation, with respect to a profitable investment of capital, like any other enterprise of trade or manufacture.  The more especially, as, requiring, by necessity or habit, slave labor for their production, the capital necessary to carry on the work of this production is very considerable.  The West Indies are resorted to, therefore, rather for the investment of capital than for the purpose of sustaining life by personal labor.  Such as possess a considerable amount of capital, or such as choose to adventure in commercial speculations without capital, can alone be fitted to be emigrants to the islands.  The agriculture of these regions, as before observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is a species of employment in which labor seems to form an inconsiderable ingredient in the productive causes, since the portion of white labor is exceedingly small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stock or capital than labor properly so called.  The individual who undertakes an establishment of this kind takes into the account the cost of the necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he calculates the cost of the land.  The uncertainty, too, of this species of employment, affords another ground of resemblance to commerce.  Although gainful on the whole, and in a series of years, it is often very disastrous for a single year, and, as the capital is not readily invested in other pursuits, bad crops or bad markets not only affect the profits, but the capital itself.  Hence the sudden depressions which take place in the value of such estates.

But the great and leading observation, relative to these establishments, remains to be made.  It is, that the owners of the soil and of the capital seldom consider themselves at home in the colony.  A very great portion of the soil itself is usually owned in the mother country; a still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained there; and, in general, those who are to derive an interest from the products look to the parent country as the place for enjoyment of their wealth.  The population is therefore constantly fluctuating.  Nobody comes but to return.  A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors takes place.  Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery, can yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, or to