he district, when an apprentice was about to
purchase his discharge, to attempt to intimidate him by threats of
immediate ejectment from the property, and if in the face of this
threatened separation from family and connections, he persevered and
procured his release, then the sincerity of the previous intimations was
evinced by a peremptory order, to instantly quit the property, under the
penalty of having the trespass act enforced against him; and if my
interference prevented any outrageous violation of law, so many
obstructions and annoyances were placed in the way of his communication
with his family, or enjoyment of his domestic rights, that he would be
compelled for their peace, and his own personal convenience, to submit
to privations, which, as a slave, he would not have been subject to. The
consequence is, that those released from the obligations of the
apprenticeship by purchase, instead of being located, and laboring for
hire upon the estate to which they were attached, and forming a nucleus
around which others would have gathered and settled themselves, they
have been principally driven to find other homes, and in the majority of
instances have purchased land, and become settlers on their own account.
If complete emancipation had taken place in 1834, there would have been
no more excitement, and no more trouble to allay it, than that which was
the consequence of the introduction of the present system of coerced and
uncompensated labor. The relations of society would have been fixed upon
a permanent basis, and the two orders would not have been placed in that
situation of jealousy and suspicion which their present anomalous
condition has been the baneful means of creating.

I am convinced there never was any serious alarm about the consequences
of immediate emancipation among those who were acquainted with the
peasantry of Jamaica. The fears of the morbidly humane were purposely
excited to increase the amount of compensation, or to lengthen the
duration of the apprenticeship; and the daily ridiculous and untruthful
statements that are made by the vitiated portion of the Jamaica press,
of the indolence of the apprentices, their disinclination to work in
their own time, and the great increase of crime, are purposely and
insidiously put forward to prevent the fact of the industry, and
decorum, and deference to the law, of the people, and the prosperous
condition of the estates, appearing in too prominent a light,