language, in this wretched,
helpless condition, they have been suddenly made free, and put into
possession at once of the rights and privileges of British subjects.
All these instances of sudden emancipation have taken place in a
colony where the disproportion between black and white is more than
a hundred to one. Yet this mixed population of suddenly emancipated
slaves--runaway slaves--criminal slaves--and degraded recaptured
negroes, are in their free condition living in order, tranquillity and
comfort, and many of them in affluence."

"During the last American war, seven hundred and seventy-four slaves
escaped from their masters, and were at the termination of the war
settled in Trinidad as free laborers, where they are earning their own
livelihood with industry and good conduct. The following extract of a
letter, received in 1829 from Trinidad by Mr. Pownall, will show the
usefulness and respectability of these liberated negroes. 'A field negro
brings four hundred dollars, but most of the work is done by free blacks
and people from the main at a much cheaper rate; and as these are
generally employed by foreigners, this accounts for their succeeding
better than our own countrymen, who are principally from the old
islands, and are unaccustomed to any other management than that of
slaves; however, they are coming into it fast. In Trinidad, there are
upwards of fifteen thousand free people of color; _there is not a single
pauper amongst them_; they live independently and comfortably, and
nearly half of the property of the island is said to be in their hands.
It is admitted that they are highly respectable in character, and are
rapidly advancing in knowledge and refinement.' Mr. Mitchell, a sugar
planter who had resided twenty-seven years in Trinidad, and who is the
superintendent of the liberated negroes there, says he knows of no
instance of a manumitted slave not maintaining himself. In a paper
printed by the House of Commons in 1827, (No. 479,) he says of the
liberated blacks under his superintendence, that each of them possessed
an allotment of land which he cultivated, and on which he raised
provisions and other articles for himself and his family; his wife and
children aiding him in the work. A great part, however, of the time of
the men (the women attending to the domestic menage) was freely given
to laboring on the neighboring plantations, on which they worked not in
general by the day, but by the piece. Mr. Mi