Just a thought about people's reaction to this whole issue - and this is written in a reflective mood, and I hope it is not taken as stirring over the coals.

] those who feel that they must just make a Statement about how wrong slavery is

I think that, when people first discover what slavery entailed, it is usual and natural to feel outrage. "Why weren't we told?" we ask; and we want to go out and tell everyone else.

] just what a bad man Sir Thomas must be

Then we come across the possibility (I hope you'll allow me, Caroline, to name only possibilities) that Sir Thomas might be a slave owner - a man whom we have probably felt is on the whole a Good Guy even if he is a bit over-bearing about the marriages of the young women in his charge - and we want to jump up and down and shout. That, IMO, is one of the faults of the adaptation of MP2: it beats us over the head with something that JA only delicately touched on (it has many other faults, but let's not go into those here!)

] wants to indulge in a reflex-action attack on slavery in principle (isn't that just soo easy to do?;-)

In my view, a reflex attack on slavery, even if it's overdone, is more understandable, honourable and humane - and also closer to the text and to the facts of history - than some of the alternatives (and, please, I hope that nobody takes this personally, as it is not meant). Some other views which are put forward, and which I'm prepared to counter if appropriate, but I'll just mention them for the moment:

-- there's no indication whatever of slavery in the text;

-- people who condoned slavery didn't know what was going on;

-- there were different moral standards in those days and we shouldn't impose our own;

-- slavery wasn't so bad and the slaves were happy (nobody's said this at Pemberley, thank goodness, but there's a large helping of it in that dreadful film `The Patriot')

On the other hand, the points that you raised - was Antigua heavily dependent on slavery, would people at the time have known this, and what would they have thought of the reference to the estate in Antigua - are questions that we should try to settle as coolly as possible. We should not cast aspersions on other people's motives for discussing them; and if anyone thinks that I've done so, either in this post or elsewhere, then I apologise and assure you that it was unintentional.

In conclusion: I might froth at the mouth with fury about MP2, but I froth a lot more about `The Patriot'.