produce of the negro's forced exertions. While
only one, and one only source exists for the
supply of his loom, he is dependent upon slavery.
The thongs of the slaveholder's whip increase
and quicken the means not only of his own
existence, but of four millions of spinning,
weaving, and printing co-mates; that being the
number of the British population—in fact,
one-sixth of it—which shares his dependence
upon the peace and prosperity of the Southern
States of America. This enormous section of
the people are precisely in the condition of a
nation, who depend upon one sort of food, or
of a man who risks his whole fortune upon
the issue of one venture. When the potato
crop failed in Ireland, thousands died of
starvation; millions would meet a similar
fate were supplies of cotton to be suddenly
cut off from the shores of the Western
Atlantic.

Manufactured cotton is the staple clothing
of nearly three-fourths of the inhabitants of
the globe; and five-sixths of the cotton reared
in the various parts of the world are imported
into this country; yet up to the present time
we have been content to depend upon the one
source for the raw article. A quarrel about a line
of territory—another Oregon question—may
paralyse our cotton factories to-morrow, and
burden the general community with the support
of one-sixth of our entire population. A frosty
night never occurs in the Cotton States without
pinching the resources of the Lancashire
operative; for as cotton becomes scarcer and
dearer, work becomes slacker and wages less.
The entire commercial aspect of this country
may at any time be suddenly changed by any
sudden misfortune happening to the North
American cotton-fields. There is no other
country to which we can successfully turn in
such an event. Our own Colonial territories
might still be made to furnish us with a
sufficient supply to render us independent of the
slaveholders of the Southern States; but up
to this time colonial agriculturists have been
too busy abusing the home Government for
its mismanagement, or squabbling amongst
themselves about local matters, to be in a
condition to send us more than a few bales
—not sufficient food for a dozen factories.
Regardless of the comparatively small amount
of labour cotton culture demands—the slight
risks of failure in the crop, the ready market
for its consumption and the insignificance of
the requisite capital—our colonial or Indian
possessions have been occupied too earnestly
by intestine disagreements, or in territorial
warfare, to yield cotton profitably to
themselves or to the parent country. Yet in
these most suitable climates nothing is more
easy. The peculiarities of culture offer no
difficulties that cannot be surmounted. The
seed is usually planted in rows, from six to
eight feet apart, in holes made at intervals
of about one yard. The depredations of the
grub make it requisite to place eight or ten
seeds in each hole. The germ appears above
ground about a fortnight after the seed has
been planted. In about four months the
shrubs are topped; in the sixth month the
blossoms burst, and between the seventh and
tenth month the pods form, and fill with the
delicate fibre which we weave into stuffs of
endless variety, although the cotton shrub
is exposed to many hostile influences.

Indeed, in many of the tropical possessions
of Great Britain, its cultivation is attended
with less risk than that which accompanies
cereal crops at home, and with which itself
is reared in America, where the variable
climate under which it is now chiefly cultivated,
and the consequent unsteadiness of
supply, render the cotton market of this
country liable to frequent and highly-injurious
fluctuations. The present disturbed and
uncertain condition of the market, amply
justifies this assertion.

The demand for cotton has increased with
such unprecedented rapidity, that it is a
matter of wonder to many that the supply has
been at all commensurate. The official tables
of the importations of cotton for the last
forty-five years, show how rapidly the demand
has risen, and how, year by year, we have
become more dependent upon America. In
1791, according to the official statement of
Mr. Woodbury, secretary to the United States
Treasury, the States produced no more than
two millions of pounds of cotton; in 1805, or
fourteen years afterwards, they exported
thirty-two million five hundred thousand
pounds into this country; in 1842, we bought
five hundred and seventy-five million pounds
of American cotton; and last year we
imported nearly five hundred and seventy-two
million pounds, worth above fourteen millions
sterling, nearly all from the same quarter.

This extraordinary increase gives a striking
proof of the truth of the economical axiom,
that permanent excess of demand produces
depression of price. The fact is, that a pound of
cotton is not worth more than a fourth of its
price in 1815. This progressive cheapness is
attributable to the improvements and economy
in the mode of culture, forced upon the
producers by the immensity of the demand. Mr.
Bates, of the house of Baring and Co., stated
before a Parliamentary Committee in 1833,
that "even six cents, or threepence per pound
is a price at which the planters can gain
money in the valley of the Mississippi;" and
according to Mr. Woodbury, "where rich
lands and labour were low, as in Alabama a
few years ago, two cents (one penny) per
pound for cotton in the seed, or eight cents
when cleaned, would pay expenses. It is
supposed to be a profitable crop in the South
Western States at ten cents per pound. Fresh
land in the States will, it is estimated, give
on an average from one thousand to one
thousand two hundred pounds per acre of cotton
seed, which will yield of clean cotton from
two hundred and fifty to three hundred
pounds. Taking the smaller average, and