The opposition was maintained even after the abolition of slavery; and there was no colony, save Jamaica, with which the English government had so much trouble in arranging the provisions and conditions under which abolition was to take place.

From statements already made, the reader will see how great a change has come over the feelings of the planters.

He has followed us through this and the preceding chapters, he has seen tranquillity taking the place of insurrections, a sense of security succeeding to gloomy forbodings, and public order supplanting mob law; he has seen subordination to authority, peacefulness, industry, and increasing morality, characterizing the negro population; he has seen property rising in value, crime lessening, expenses of labor diminishing, the whole island blooming with unexampled cultivation, and waving with crops unprecedented in the memory of its inhabitants; above all, he has seen licentiousness decreasing, prejudice fading away, marriage extending, education spreading, and religion preparing to multiply her churches and missionaries over the land.

These are the blessing of abolition—­begun only, and but partially realized as yet, but promising a rich maturity in time to come, after the work of freedom shall have been completed.

CHAPTER V.

THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM.

The nature of the apprenticeship system may be learned form the following abstract of its provisions, relative to the three parties chiefly concerned in its operation—­the special magistrate, the master, and the apprentice.

PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATES.

1.  They must be disconnected with planters and plantership, that they may be independent of all colonial parties and interests whatever.

2.  The special magistrates adjudicate only in cases where the master and apprentice are parties.  Offences committed by apprentices against any person not connected with the estates on which they live, come under the cognizance of the local magistrates or of higher courts.

3.  The special justices sit three days in the week at their offices, where all complaints are carried, both by the master and apprentice.  The magistrates do not go the estate, either to try or to punish offenders.  Besides, the three days the magistrates are required to be at home every Saturday, (that being the day on which the apprentices are disengaged,) to give friendly advice and instruction on points of law and personal rights to all apprentices who may call.

PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE MASTER.

1.  The master is allowed the gratuitous labor of the apprentice for forty-five hours each week.  The several islands were permitted by the English government to make such a division of this time as local circumstances might seem to require.  In some islands, as for instance in St. Christopher’s and Tortola, it is spread over six days of the week in proportions of seven and a half hours per day, thus leaving the apprentice mere shreds of time in which he can accomplish nothing for himself.  In Barbadoes, the forty-five hours is confined within five days, in portions of nine hours per day.