Under the head of general inquiry, I beg leave to offer a few remarks.  I have now great pleasure in having it in my power to state, that a manifest change for the better has taken place gradually in my district within the last few months.  Asperities seem to be giving way to calm discussion, and the laws are better understood and obeyed.

It is said in other colonies as well as here, that there has been, and still continues to be, a great want of natural affection among the negro parents for their children, and that great mortality among the free children has occurred in consequence.  This opinion, I understand, has been lately expressed in confident terms by the legislature of St. Vincent’s, which has been fully and satisfactorily contradicted by the reports of the special justices to the lieutenant-governor.  The same assertion has been made by individuals to myself.  As regards Barbadoes, I have spared no pains to discover whether such statements were facts, and I now am happy to say, that not a single instance of unnatural conduct on the part of the negro parents to their children has come to my knowledge—­far, perhaps too far, the contrary is the case; over indulgence and petting them seems in my judgment to be the only matter the parents can be, with any justice, accused of.  They exhibit their fondness in a thousand ways.  Contrasting the actual conduct of the negro parents with the assertions of the planters, it is impossible not to infer that some bitterness is felt by the latter on the score of their lost authority.  When this is the case, reaction is the natural consequence, and thus misunderstandings and complaints ensue.  The like assertions are made with respect to the disinclination of the parents to send their children to school.  This certainly does exist to a certain extent, particularly to schools where the under classes of whites are taught, who often treat the negro children in a most imperious and hostile manner.  As some proof that no decided objection exists in the negro to educate his children, a vast number of the apprentices of my district send them to school, and take pride in paying a bit a week each for them—­a quarter dollar entrance and a quarter dollar for each vacation.  Those schools are almost always conducted by a black man and his married wife.  However, they are well attended, but are very few in number.

To show that the apprentices fully estimate the blessings of education, many females hire their apprentice children at a quarter dollar a week from their masters, for the express purpose of sending them to school.  This proves the possibility of a voluntary system of education succeeding, provided it was preceded by full and satisfactory explanation to the parties concerned.  I have also little doubt that labor to the extent I speak of, may be successfully introduced when the apprentices become assured that nothing but the ultimate welfare of themselves and children is