to regulate their own affairs, but the government, or rather, the people of England, had forced on the predicament in which they were placed.  The ministry could not help themselves—­They were driven to violate the national compact, not in express words, it is true, but in fact.  It was, however, the force of public opinion that operated in producing the change.  They were placed in a situation from which they could hardly extricate themselves.—­ They had no alternative, he was afraid, but to go along with the stream.”

Mr. Hamilton Brown, who at the commencement of the apprenticeship came into a Special Magistrate’s court and publicly told him that unless he and his colleagues “did their duty by having recourse to a frequent and vigorous application of the lash, there would he rebellion in the Parish (of St. Ann’s!) in less than a month, and all the responsibility of such a calamity would rest on their shoulders”! discoursed in the following manner.  “It was always understood, for the apprenticeship had become marketable.  Properties had been bought and sold with them, their time had been bought by others, and by themselves.”

“He had no hesitation in saying, that the statements which had been made in England against the planters were as false as hell—­they had been concocted here, and sent home by a parcel of spies in the island.  They were represented as a cruel set of men, as having outraged the feelings of humanity towards the negroes, or in matters in which they were concerned.  This was false.  He did not mean to deny that there were a few instances of cruelty to the apprentices, but then those were isolated cases, and was it not hard that a hue and cry should be raised against the whole body of planters, and all made to suffer on account of those few.  He would say that there was a greater disposition to be cruel to the negroes evinced by young men arriving in this island from England, than by the planters.  There was, indeed, a great deal of difficulty in restraining them from doing so, but the longer they lived in the country, the more kind and humane they became.  The negroes were better off here than many of the people of Great Britain, and they would have been contented, had it not been for the injudicious interference of some of the Special Justices.  Who had ever heard of negroes being starved to death?  Had they not read accounts in the English papers of men destroying their wives, their children, and afterwards themselves, because they could not obtain food.  They had been grossly defrauded of their property; and after doing that, it was now sought to destroy their constitutional rights.  He would repeat, they had been grossly defrauded of their property.” [Here is the true slaveholder, logic, chivalry and all.]