Real estate had risen in value.
Col.

B.alluded to the expensiveness of slavery, remarking that after all that was expended in purchasing the slaves, it cost the proprietor as much to maintain them, as it would to hire free men.

He spoke of the habit of exercising arbitrary power, which being in continual play up to the time of abolition, had become so strong that managers even yet gave way to it, and frequently punished their apprentices, in spite of all penalties.

The fines inflicted throughout the island in 1836, upon planters, overseers, and others, for punishing apprentices, amounted to one thousand two hundred dollars.Col.

B.said that he found the legal penalty so inadequate, that in his own practice he was obliged to resort to other means to deter his book-keepers and overseers from violence; hence he discharged every man under his control who was known to strike an apprentice.