Rome and Houston Estate, £40,000 £100,000
Success, 30,000 55,000
Kitty, 26,000 60,000
William, 18,000 40,000
In 1844, the Groenveldt estate, formerly valued at £35,000, was sold for
£10,000. In 1845, the Baillie’s Hope estate, formerly valued at £50,000,
was disposed of for £7,000. And in 1846, the Haarlem estate went for
£3,500, whereas its previous value was not less than £50,000!
We have been accustomed of late to fluctuations of property, but it
would be difficult to find in any other list of prices such instances of
ruinous declension. The above were cases of private sale; let us now
look to the estates which were sold by execution in the country, and we
shall find a still greater decadence. In the following list, which is
that of 1846, the Kitty estate, disposed of in 1840, appears again.
Kitty Estate, £3,000 £60,000
Nismes, 5,000 55,000
Vryheid’s Lust, 6,000 55,000
Let those persons who think that the planters were amply compensated by
the sum of £20,000,000 at the time of emancipation, consider the above
figures carefully: and they may arrive at a different conclusion. Let us
adopt the argument of the Planter, and take the case of the Kitty
estate, of the original value of £60,000. Suppose that upon this estate
there had been £18,000 of debt, and a clear vested remanent interest to
the proprietor of £42,000. Let us further suppose that the property had
not changed hands until 1846, when it was brought to sale, and the
result will be, that the compensation money, estimated at £15,000, and
the price which the estate fetched in the public market, would barely
have sufficed to buy off the mortgage, and the proprietor’s £42,000
would have utterly disappeared!
We are enabled from a private source to carry out the history of one of
these Demarara estates. “We bought it,” says our correspondent, “or
rather we took it over as a bad debt for our mortgage (upwards of
£12,000) for £5,000. Of course no person would have had any thing to do
with it but under the circumstances stated. And to show you that
property is now of no value, we may mention that we took an estate over,
valued in the year 1825 at £60,000, as a bad debt; and though the estate
has been advertised for sale or lease, we cannot get an offer of any
kind, and have accordingly determined and sent out orders to abandon it.
The works are in first-rate order, and every thing complete; therefore
you may judge of the sacrifice; which, however, is only imaginary, as
the cultivation of this estate, since 1842, has cost us £13,000 more
than the produce has yielded. This does not include interest, but the
actual wages and expenditure to make crops which have sold for £13,000
less than they cost us to produce. I could enumerate many others, but
one is as good as a thousand. The situation of some of the estates is
much in their favour, and this was another reason that induced us to
take the one alluded to on any terms.
“The West Indians have been often taunted with not adopting the
improvements which are introduced in the slave colonies. At the cost of
about £2,000 we sent out last August machinery for that estate, and
since then have written out not to unpack it, and, in the serious
contemplation of abandoning the estate, have asked the makers of that
machinery to take it off our hands, as they have a good many orders for
foreign slave-growing countries. I believe, if we determine to sacrifice
it, that they will send it to Porto Rico or Havannah.”
The following letter, written by a highly respectable gentleman in this
country, who is also a Jamaica proprietor, and referring to the present
depreciation of property in that island, has been placed in our hands.
The reader must judge for himself as to the hardship of the case which
it portrays.
“Any information that I can give in reference to the present alarming
and distressed situation of Jamaica, is, I believe, nothing more than
what might be afforded by every one connected with that once
flourishing, but now all but ruined island.
“I consider my case a hard one, and thousands are in a similar
situation. I shall merely state a few simple facts as regards myself.
About four years ago, upon the understanding and belief that the
question, as to a fair protection in favour of our colonial sugar over
foreign, or more especially slave labour sugar, was for ever set at
rest, I became the purchaser of a fine estate in the island of Jamaica,
for the sum of ten thousand five hundred pounds. In order to give every
justice to the property, I sent out a fine new steam engine, and various
other kinds of machinery and agricultural implements—in short, have
expended upwards of seven thousand pounds, over and above the proceeds
of all the produce made upon the estate during the course of the last
four years (so that it now costs me about eighteen thousand pounds) in
the hopes of eventually reaping a fair return. And this would have been
the case for crop 1847, had not the unexpected and cruel measure of
admitting slave-labour sugar at a low duty been introduced and carried
by Lord John Russell last year. My attorney in Jamaica, before he was
aware of such a rash and heartless step being taken, made out a
statement of the expected crop and expenditure on the estate for the
said year 1847, taking sugar at a moderate price, by which he showed a
good surplus of one thousand pounds; but, alas! ere the produce came to
market, prices fell so low, that in place of making any profit (though
the estate made a good crop) I shall lose from one thousand to twelve
hundred pounds, besides the interest on the eighteen thousand pounds of
capital. This, you are aware, is perfectly ruinous, and I have been
obliged to write out to my attorney, in order to save my property at
home, to stop planting any more canes in the meantime; and, unless
government immediately retrace their steps, to abandon the estate
altogether. I am sorry to say, that this has been the hard fate with
many a proprietor already, and must, ere long, overwhelm the whole
colony. My property was considered one of the finest in the island, and
if it perish none can stand. I might give particulars of many cases of
extreme hardship, but it is needless to multiply these, as you must have
many similar facts from other sources.”
The following letter is taken from a late number of a Jamaica newspaper,
and we recommend it seriously to the attention of our readers:
“_To the Editor of the Jamaica Despatch, Chronicle, and Gazette._
“‘Coming events cast their shadows before.’
“SIR,—I have just returned from Lucea, where I have witnessed a
sight any thing but gratifying to my feelings.
“A vessel has arrived from ‘Trinidad de Cuba,’ to load with the mill
and machinery, coppers, and other apparatus, from Williamsfield
Estate in this parish, late the property of Mr Alexander Grant. The
estate has, since Mr Grant’s death, been, from the difficulty of the
times, abandoned; and Mr D’Castro, the owner of the vessel now at
Lucea, has purchased the fixtures for an estate settling in Cuba.
“Is not the fate of Jamaica estates foreshadowed in this
circumstance? Is it not a melancholy reflection that we are being
wantonly sacrificed by our fellow countrymen, solely for the
aggrandisement of foreigners?
“It does not require, Mr Editor, a prophet to foretell the fate of
Jamaica sugar properties, and that for every man’s property
destroyed here half a dozen will flourish in Cuba. A new branch of
trade is opened to us, and for a few months, no doubt, it will be a
brisk one. I would strongly recommend gentlemen who are advertising
properties for sale to send the advertisement to Cuba; an estate now
is not worth more than the cattle and machinery on it, and our
neighbours in Cuba, might obtain all the machinery necessary for the
settlement of their sugar plantations on very easy terms; and it
will be, no doubt, exceedingly agreeable at some future time, when
necessity compels us to quit our own country, to seek a living in
Cuba, to see our late still, steam-engine, or coppers, and if we,
are particularly fortunate, obtain the superintendence of any one of
them. I am, Mr Editor, your obedient servant,