risk would be increased
and not diminished during the intermediate period up to 1840, by the
treatment they were receiving from their masters, and the deferring
of their hopes.

My lords, (continued the noble lord,) I have now to say a few words
upon the treatment which the slaves have received during the past
three years of their apprenticeship, and which, it is alleged,
during the next two years is to make them fitted for absolute
emancipation. My lords, I am prepared to show that in most respects
the treatment the slaves have received since 1834 is no better, and
in many others more unjust and worse, than it ever was in the time
of absolute slavery. It is true that the use of the cartwhip as a
stimulus to labor has been abolished. This, I admit, is a great and
most satisfactory improvement; but, in every other particular, the
state of the slave, I am prepared to show, is not improved, and, in
many respects, it is materially worse. First, with regard to the
article of food, I will compare the Jamaica prison allowance with
that allotted to the apprenticed negroes in other colonies. In the
Jamaica prison the allowance of rice is 14 pints a week to each
person. I have no return of the allowance to the indentured
apprentice in Jamaica, but I believe it is little over this; but in
Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, it is much under. In Barbadoes,
instead of receiving the Jamaica prison allowance of 14 pints a
week, the apprenticed negro received but 10 pints: while in the
Leeward Islands he had but 8 pints. In the crown colonies, before
1834, the slave received 21 pints of rice, now the apprentice gets
but 10; so that in the material article, food, no improvement in the
condition of the negro was observable. Then, with regard to time, it
is obviously of the utmost importance that the apprentice should
have at least two holidays and a half a week--the Sabbath for
religious worship and instruction, the Saturday to attend the
markets, and half of Friday to work in his own garden. The act of
emancipation specified 45 hours a week as the period the apprentice
was to work for his master, but the master so contrived matters as
in most instances to make the 45 hours the law allotted him run into
the apprentice's half of Friday, and even in some cases into the
Saturday. The planter invariab