Let the croakers remember the remarkable words of the Tory Lord, Belmore, the planter's friend, and be silent--"The resources of this fine island will never be fully developed until slavery ceases." The happiness and prosperity of the inhabitants of Jamaica are not contingent, nor need they be, upon the number of hogsheads of sugar annually exported from her shores.
* * * * * To the foregoing we add the remarks of the editor of the "Spanishtown Telegraph," on the present state of the colony, made in his paper of May 9, 1837:-- "When it was understood that the island of Jamaica and the other British West Indian colonies were to undergo the blessed transition from slavery to freedom, it was the hourly cry of the pro-slavery party and press, that the ruin of Jamaica would, as a natural consequence, follow liberty! Commerce, said they, will cease; hordes of barbarians will come upon us and drive us from our own properties; agriculture will be completely paralyzed; and Jamaica, in the space of a few short months, will be seen buried in ashes--irretrievably ruined.

Such were the awful predictions of an unjust, illiberal faction!! Such the first fruits that were to follow the incomparable blessings of liberty! 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.