When such a man as Sir Lionel Smith pronounced it no longer practicable to carry on coercive labor, he must have been a bold as well as a rash planter who would venture to hold on to the old system under Lord Glenelg’s improvement Act.  Accordingly we find some of the staunchest advocates of slavery, men who had been fattening on the oppression of the apprentices up to that moment the first, and the most precipitate, is their proposals of abolition.  Mr. Hyslop, Mr. Gay and others were for acting at once on the Governor’s speech without referring it to a committee.  The former said:  “He believed that a proposition would be made to abandon the apprenticeship from the 1st of August, but he would say let it be abandoned from Sunday next.  He would therefore move that the speech be made the order of the day for tomorrow.”

Mr. Guy said:—­

“The Governor’s speech contained nothing more than what every Gentlemen expected, and what every Gentlemen, he believed, was prepared to do.  In short he would state that a bill had already been prepared by him, which he intended to introduce tomorrow, for the abolition of the apprenticeship on the 1st of August next.”

Both these gentlemen are well known by the readers of Jamaica papers as obstinate defenders slavery.  The latter was so passionately devoted to the abuses of the apprenticeship that Lord Sligo was obliged to dismiss him from the post of Adjutant General of militia.  In the ardor of his attachment to the “peculiar institution” of getting work without pay, he is reported to have declared on a public occasion, that the British ministry were a “parcel of reptiles” and that the “English nation was fast going to the dogs.”  In another part of the debate:—­

“Mr. Guy hoped the house would not go into a discussion of the nature of the apprenticeship, or the terms upon which it was forced us by the government.  All that he knew about the matter was, that it was a part and parcel of the compensation.  Government had so declared it.  In short it was made law.  He could not help believing that the Hon. member for Trelawny, was arguing against the dictates of his own honest heart—­that he came there cut and dry with a speech prepared to defend the government.”

Mr. Barclay, to whom, some years ago, the planters gave a splendid service of plate for his ingenious defence of slavery against the terrible pen of JAMES STEPHEN, said “it appeared to be the general feeling of the house that the apprenticeship should be done away with.  Be that as it may, he was free to say that in that part of the island he was from, and certainly it was a large and wealthy district, the apprenticeship system had worked well, and all parties appeared satisfied with it.  He denied that there existed any necessity to disturb the working of the system, it would have gradually slided into absolute freedom if they were permitted