native sense and considerable intelligence. He
declared it most unreservedly as his opinion, that
the negroes would not work after 1810—they
were naturally so indolent, that they would
prefer gaining a livelihood in some easier way than
by digging cane holes. He had all the results
of the emancipation of 1840 as clearly before his
mind, as though he saw them in prophetic vision; he
knew the whole process. One portion of the negroes,
too lazy to provide food by their own labor, will
rob the provision grounds of the few who will remain
at work. The latter will endure the wrong as
long as they well can, and then they will procure
arms and fire upon the marauders; this will give rise
to incessant petty conflicts between the lazy and the
industrious, and a great destruction of life will
ensue. Others will die in vast numbers from starvation;
among these will be the superannuated and the young,
who cannot support themselves, and whom the planters
will not be able to support. Others numerous
will perish from disease, chiefly for want of medical
attendance, which it will be wholly out of their power
to provide. Such is the dismal picture drawn by
a late slaveholder, of the consequences of removing
the negroes from the tender mercies of oppressors.
Happily for all parties, Mr. Thomson is not very likely
to establish his claim to the character of a prophet.
We were not at all surprised to hear him wind up his
prophecies against freedom with a denunciation
of slavery. He declared that slavery was a
wretched system. Man was naturally a tyrant.
Mr. T. said he had one good thing to say of the negroes,
viz., that they were an exceedingly temperate
people. It was a very unusual thing to see
one of them drunk. Slavery, he said, was a system
of horrid cruelties. He had lately read,
in the history of Jamaica, of a planter, in 1763, having
a slave’s leg cut off, to keep him from
running away. He said that dreadful cruelties
were perpetrated until the close of slavery, and they
were inseparable from slavery. He also spoke
of the fears which haunted the slaveholders.
He never would live on an estate; and whenever he chanced
to stay over night in the country, he always took care
to secure his door by bolting and barricading it.
At Mr. Thomson’s we met Andrew Wright, Esq.,
the proprietor of a sugar estate called Green Wall,
situated some six miles from the bay. He is an
intelligent gentleman, of an amiable disposition—has
on his estate one hundred and sixty apprentices.
He described his people as being in a very peaceable
state, and as industrious as he could wish. He
said he had no trouble with them, and it was his opinion,
that where there is trouble, it must be owing to
bad management. He anticipated no difficulty
after 1840, and was confident that his people would
not leave him. He believed that the negroes would
not to any great extent abandon the cultivation of
sugar after 1840. Mr. T. stated two facts respecting