“Trinidad.—­The reports from the various districts as to the conduct of our laboring population, are as various and opposite, the Standard says, to each other as it is possible for them to be.  There are many of the Estates on which the laborers had at first gone on steadily to work which now have scarcely a hand upon them, whilst upon others they muster a greater force than they could before command.  We hear also that the people have already in many instances exhibited that propensity common to the habits of common life, which we call squatting, and to which we have always looked forward as one of the evils likely to accompany their emancipation, and calling for the earliest and most serious attention of our Legislature.  We must confess, however, that it is a subject not easy to deal with safely and effectually.”

TRINIDAD,—­The Standard says:  “The state of the cultivation at present is said to be as far advanced as could have been anticipated under the new circumstances in which the Island stands.  The weather throughout the month has been more than usually favorable to weeding, whilst there has also been sufficient rain to bring out the plants; and many planters having, before the 1st of Augus, pushed on their weeding by free labor and (paid) extra tasks, the derangement in their customary labor which has been experienced since that period, does not leave them much below an average progress.”

“Of the laborers, although they are far from being settled, we believe we may say, that they are not working badly; indeed, compared with those of the sister colonies, they are both more industrious and more disposed to be on good terms with their late masters.  Some few estates continue short of their usual compliment of hands; but many of the laborers who had left the proprietors, have returned to them, whilst many others have changed their locality either to join their relations, or to return to their haunts of former days.  So far as we can learn, nothing like insubordination or combination exists.  We are also happy to say, that on some estates, the laborers have turned their attention to their provision grounds.  There is one point, however, which few seem to comprehend, which is, that although free, they cannot work one day and be idle the next, ad libitum.”

Later accounts mention that some thousands more of laborers were wanted to take off the crop, and that a committee of immigration had been appointed to obtain them. [See Amos Townsend’s letter on the last page.] So it seems the free laborers are so good they want more of them.  The same is notoriously true of Demerara, and Berbice.  Instead of a colonization spirit to get rid of the free blacks, the quarrel among the colonies is, which shall get the most.  It is no wonder that the poor negroes in Trinidad should betake themselves to squatting.  The island is thinly peopled and the administration or justice is horribly corrupt, under the governorship and judgeship of Sir George Hill, the well known defaulter as Vice Treasurer of Ireland, on whose appointment Mr. O’Connell remarked that “delinquents might excuse themselves by referring to the case of their judge.”