among the West India islands.  The prosperity of the island under free labor has been most encouraging.  Of the 70,000 acres, 38,000 are owned by large proprietors, whose estates average 320 acres each.  Its only export, with the exception of a little arrow-root, is sugar; of this, the largest crop on record (20,000 hogsheads) has been obtained since the slaves were emancipated.  Ten years before emancipation, the average annual export, as given by Sewell, was 12,500 hogsheads, obtained by a field-force of 18,320 hands, of whom one-third were non-effective.  From 1840 to 1850, the average was 13,000; from 1850 to 1860, 13,500, of superior weight, with a field-force of 6,000.

The export of sugar, according to Cochin, has been as follows:  1831-34, 180,802 cwt.; 1835-38, 143,878 cwt.; 1839-45, 189,406 cwt.; 1846, 102,644 cwt.; 1847, 200,201 cwt.

Besides this crop, the small proprietors raise arrow-root and provisions.

The imports show the advancing prosperity of the island.  From 1822 to 1832, they amounted to L130,000, of which L40,000 were from the United States; in 1856, under free labor, they reached L266,369, of which L106,586 were from the United States,—­the American imports being mostly articles of food.  This remarkable increase of importations, it should be observed, is not due to an increase of population, as the population of Antigua is less now than it was twenty years since.

In commerce, it appears that ten years before emancipation, 340 vessels of 30,000 tons entered the ports of the island every year; in 1858, there were 688 of 42,534 tons.

Labor costs less in Antigua than in the other islands, wages being 20 cts. a day; while in Barbadoes they are 24 cts., and in Trinidad 30 cts.  The production of sugar is more profitable, as respects the labor, than in the slave-islands,—­costing but 1-1/5 cts. per lb.

Though the average price of land is fifty dollars an acre, the freed negroes seldom squat on the public lands, but buy little farms of their own.  In 1858, the emancipated slaves had built, since 1834, 5187 houses, in which 15,644 people resided.  There were that year only 299 paupers in the whole island.  Education and morality had advanced.  Owing to the wise liberality of the planters, nearly one-third of the whole revenue of the island (L10,000) was appropriated to educational, charitable, and religious purposes.  The great proportion of the youth attend school.  At the time of emancipation, the whole number of scholars in all the schools was 1886; in 1858, there were 52 schools with 4467 scholars, and 37 Sunday-schools with 6418.  The number of illegitimate births was only 53 per cent., which is a much more favorable proportion than exists in the other islands.

The planters all agree that emancipation has been an entire success.  The only drawback is a somewhat singular one, and illustrates the dependent habits which slavery generates.  Under their masters, the slaves were always provided with sufficient medical attendance; but when free, they had not the means or were not prudent enough to secure this, and the consequence has been a great mortality of children, so that the births now scarcely exceed the deaths.