s hand demanding
of a laborer the enormous sum of 10s. per week for house and ground. He
had seen other notices in which 6s, 8d. and 5s. had been demanded for
the same. He did not consider that the parties issuing those notices had
acted with prudence.

Mr. HYSLOP explained--He admitted the charge, but said that the sum was
never intended to be exacted.

Sir LIONEL said he was aware of what was going on; he had heard of it.
"It was a policy which ought no longer to be pursued."

We have given the foregoing documents, full and ungarbled, that our
readers might fairly judge for themselves. We have not picked here a
sentence and there a sentence, but let the Governor, the Assembly, the
Missionaries, and the press tell their whole story. Let them be read,
compared, and weighed.

We might indefinitely prolong our extracts from the West India papers to
show, not only in regard to the important island of Jamaica, but
Barbados and several other colonies, that the former masters are alone
guilty of the non-working of the emancipated, so far as they refuse to
work. But we think we have already produced proof enough to establish
the following points:--

1. That there was a strong predisposition on the part of the Jamaica
planters to defraud their labourers of their wages. They hoped that by
yielding, before they were driven quite to the last extremity, by the
tide of public sentiment in England, they should escape from all
philanthropic interference and surveillance, and be able to bring the
faces of their unyoked peasantry to the grindstone of inadequate wages.

2. That the emancipated were not only peaceful in their new freedom, but
ready to grant an amnesty of all post abuses, and enter cheerfully into
the employ of their former masters for reasonable wages. That in cases
where disagreement has arisen as to the rate of daily or weekly wages,
the labourers have been ready to engage in task work, to be paid by the
piece, and have laboured so efficiently and profitably--proving a strong
disposition for industry and the acquisition of property.

3. That in the face of this good disposition of the laborers, the
planters have, in many cases, refused to give adequate wages.

4. That in still more numerous cases, including many in which the wages
have been apparently liberal, enormous extortion has been practiced upon
the laborer, in the form of rent demanded for his hovel and provision
patch--L20 per annum being demanded for