beforehand; & once their Agency has only got the men to whom its chance invitation became known in time for them to get away during the same season.
As to whether the Agency would be open during the succeeding season had to be met with a doubtful reply. All enquiries could be discouraging. If an Agency be permanently established here, it is likely that within two or three years this place would supply all the men required by our West India Colonies; & with a wider field to draw from, as its existence became more generally known, it would be able to select more suitable men than it has hitherto obtained.
"I know that a large proportion of the men hitherto sent from Canton and Hong Kong, were townspeople; & this has been the case, to a lesser extent, at Amoy also. But if the Agency were known as a sure opening, it would be able to select none but field laborers out of the greater number of candidates for employment. Another advantage attendant on getting as many men as possible from this neighbourhood, would be the genial tractable nature of the emigrants; as the people here differ widely from those of Canton & Macao, being less turbulent and clannish.
2. The demand for men should be as regular as practicable in point of number, year by year. To call for only 500 in the next season, after requiring 2000 men in one season, would lead to many people being disappointed in the second season, & would inspire distrust for the future. It should not be difficult to make a tolerably correct estimate of the number of men that would be required year by year, for a term of years, by all the principal colonies; & that number should then be adhered to, year by year, as nearly as possible.