picture interesting to look upon—­if ever there was a passage in the history of a people redounding to their eternal honor—­if ever there was a complete refutation of all the scandalous calumnies which had been heaped upon them for ages, as if in justification of the wrongs which we had done them—­(Hear, hear)—­that picture and that passage are to be found in the uniform and unvarying history of that people throughout the whole of the West India islands.  Instead of the fires of rebellion, lit by a feeling of lawless revenge and resistance to oppression, the whole of those islands were, like an Arabian scene, illuminated by the light of contentment, joy, peace, and good-will towards all men.  No civilized people, after gaining an unexpected victory, could have shown more delicacy and forbearance than was exhibited by the slaves at the great moral consummation which they had attained.  There was not a look or a gesture which could gall the eyes of their masters.  Not a sound escaped from negro lips which could wound the ears of the most feverish planter in the islands.  All was joy, mutual congratulation, and hope.

    This peaceful joy, this delicacy towards the feelings of others, was
    all that was to be seen, heard, or felt, on that occasion,
    throughout the West India islands.

It was held that the day of emancipation would be one of riot and debauchery, and that even the lives of the planters would be endangered.  So far from this proving the case, the whole of the negro population kept it as a most sacred festival, and in this light I am convinced it will ever be viewed.

In one island, where the bounty of nature seems to provoke the appetite to indulgence, and to scatter with a profuse hand all the means of excitement, I state the fact when I say not one drunken negro was found during the whole of the day.  No less than 800,000 slaves were liberated in that one day, and their peaceful festivity was disturbed only on one estate, in one parish, by an irregularity which three or four persons sufficed to put down.

Well, my lords, baffled in their expectations that the first of August would prove a day of disturbance—­baffled also in the expectation that no voluntary labor would be done—­we were then told by the “practical men,” to look forward to a later period.  We have done so, and what have we seen?  Why, that from the time voluntary labor began, there was no want of men to work for hire, and that there was no difficulty in getting those who as apprentices had to give the planters certain hours of work, to extend, upon emergency, their period of labor, by hiring out their services for wages to strangers.  I have the authority of my noble friend behind me, (the Marquis of Sligo,) who very particularly, inquired into the matter, when I state that on nine estates out of ten there was no difficulty in obtaining as much work as the owners had occasion for,