is absolutely necessary to grow and
manufacture the produce of his estate; and these gentlemen must
henceforth look to their own resources, for the payment of servants to
attend and take care of their own interests and comforts. An overseer's
situation on an estate making 300 hogsheads, was calculated in slavery
to be equal to 2000l. a year. Indeed no man in any town could have lived
in such luxury for that sum. If the proprietor would only come out, and
live prudently, he would save all this by residing on his property,
which he could easily manage by employing, for extra wages, his former
steady head people. _They_, from long residence, know the best manner of
working the land; and, as to the manufacture of sugar, they are the
persons who have _all their lives_ been working at it. The most
important part of an overseer and book-keeper's business was to make use
of their _eyes_. The negro had to make use of his legs, arms and
strength; and, in nine cases out of ten, his brains kept the white
people in their situations, by preventing matters from going wrong.

I perfectly coincide with you, as to the propriety of the negro speedily
becoming possessed of the elective franchise. In Antigua there is very
little more land than is in cultivation for the estates, but here it is
widely different; and they are beginning to settle themselves by
purchasing small lots very fast. At Sligoville there are nearly fifty
new freeholders. The negroes are taught to do this by the perpetual
worry of their employers, threatening to oust them on every trifling
occasion, and withholding part of their wages on the plea of
non-performance of work.--The root of all evil is the Assembly and the
Juries. Nothing requires greater alteration; and I shall never rest,
until I see the black man stand the same chance at the bar of his
country as the white man.--The negroes will not work under their former
hard task-masters. They determinedly resist all solicitations to labor
with those who treated them ill. They say that the pain is gone, but the
mark remains, and I respect them for this proud feeling.

* * * * *

I have come under his displeasure for taking the opinion of Middleton
and McDougal, as to the legality of charging the negro hire for his
house and grounds, for the three months during which the notices to quit
are running.--Had we not taken these opinions, what a fearful state
things might we have been brought