In Antigua, one of the old sugar colonies, where slavery had had its full sway there has been especially a fair test of immediatism, and the increasing prosperity of the island does the utmost honor to the principle.

After the fullest inquiry on the point, Messrs.

Thome and Kimball say of this island:-- "There is not a class, or party, or sect, who do not esteem the abolition of slavery as a _special blessing to them_.

The rich, because it relieved them of "property" which was fast becoming a disgrace, as it had always been a vexation and a tax, and because it has emancipated them from the terrors of insurrection, which kept them all their life-time subject to bondage.

The poor whites--because it lifted from off them the yoke of civil oppression.