the only property on the island. The only mode of access to
many of the estates in the mountainous districts, is by mule paths
winding about, amid fastnesses, precipices, and frightful solitudes.
In those lone retirements, on the mountain top, or in the deep glen
by the side of the rocky rivers, the traveller occasionally meets
with an estate. Strangers but rarely intrude upon those little
domains. They are left to the solitary sway of the overseers
dwelling amid their "gangs," and undisturbed, save by the weekly
visitations of the special magistrates. While the traveller is
struck with the facilities for the perpetration of those enormities
which must have existed there during slavery; he is painfully
impressed also with the numerous opportunities which are still
afforded for oppressing the apprentices, particularly where the
special magistrates are not honest men.[A]

[Footnote A: From the nature of the case, it must be impossible to know
how much actual flogging is perpetrated by the overseers. We might
safely conjecture that there must be a vast deal of it that never comes
to the light. Such is the decided belief of many of the first men in the
island. The planters, say they, flog their apprentices, and then, to
prevent their complaining to the magistrate, threaten them with severe
punishment, or bribe them to silence by giving them a few shillings. The
attorney-general mentioned an instance of the latter policy. A planter
got angry with one of his head men, who was a constable, and knocked him
down. The man started off to complain to the special magistrate. The
master called him back, and told him he need not go to the
magistrate--that he was constable, and had a right to fine him himself.
"Well, massa," said the negro, "I fine you five shillings on de spot."
The master was glad to get off with that--the magistrate would probably
have fined him L5 currency.]

In view of the local situation of Jamaica--the violent character of
its planters--and the inevitable dependency of the magistrates, it
is very manifest _that immediate emancipation was imperatively
demanded there_. In no other colony did the negroes require to be
more _entirely released from the tyranny of the overseers, or more
thoroughly shielded by the power of equal law_. This is a principle
which must hold good always--that where slavery has been most
rigorous and absolut