This society was organized in 1815.  The first proposal came from a few little colored girls, who, after hearing a sermon on the blessedness of doing good, wanted to know whether they might not have a society for raising money to give to the poor.

This Juvenile Association has, since its organization, raised the sum of fourteen hundred dollars!  Even this little association has experienced a great impulse from the free system.  From a table of the annual receipts since 1815, we found that the amount raised the two last years, is nearly equal to that received during any three years before.

DR. DANIELL—­WEATHERILL ESTATE.

On our return from Thibou Jarvis’s estate, we called at Weatherill’s; but the manager, Dr. Daniell, not being at home, we left our names, with an intimation of the object of our visit.  Dr. D. called soon after at our lodgings.  As authority, he is unquestionable.  Before retiring from the practice of medicine, he stood at the head of his profession in the island.  He is now a member of the council, is proprietor of an estate, manager of another, and attorney for six.

The fact that such men as Dr. D., but yesterday large slaveholders, and still holding high civil and political stations, should most cheerfully facilitate our anti-slavery investigations, manifesting a solicitude to furnish us with all the information in their power, is of itself the highest eulogy of the new system.  The testimony of Dr. D. will be found mainly in a subsequent part of the work.  We state, in passing, a few incidentals.  He was satisfied that immediate emancipation was better policy than a temporary apprenticeship.  The apprenticeship was a middle state—­kept the negroes in suspense—­vexed and harrassed them—­fed them on a starved hope; and therefore they would not be so likely, when they ultimately obtained freedom, to feel grateful, and conduct themselves properly.  The reflection that they had been cheated out of their liberty for six years would sour their minds.  The planters in Antigua, by giving immediate freedom, had secured the attachment of their people.

The Doctor said he did not expect to make more than two thirds of his average crop; but he assured us that this was owing solely to the want of rain.  There had been no deficiency of labor.  The crops were in, in season, throughout the island, and the estates were never under better cultivation than at the present time.  Nothing was wanting but RAIN—­RAIN.

He said that the West India planters were very anxious to retain the services of the negro population.

Dr. D. made some inquiries as to the extent of slavery in the United States, and what was doing for its abolition.  He thought that emancipation in our country would not be the result of a slow process.  The anti-slavery feeling of the civilized world had become too strong to wait for a long course of “preparations” and “ameliorations.”  And besides, continued he, “the arbitrary control of a master can never be a preparation for freedom;—­sound and wholesome legal restraints are the only preparative.”