f their valued liberty, and they
were prepared to rejoice at the extension of the constitution to the
emancipated blacks. But the British Government, by a great fault, if not
a crime, has, at the moment when all should have been free, torn from
the lately ascendant class, the privileges which were their birthright,
another class, now the equals of the former, the rights they had long
and fortunately struggled for, and from the emancipated blacks the
rights which they fondly expected to enjoy with their personal freedom.
The boon of earlier freedom will not compensate this most numerous part
of our population for the injustice and wrong done to the whole
Jamaica people.
The documents already adduced are confined almost exclusively to
Jamaica. We will refer briefly to one of the other colonies. The next in
importance is
BARBADOS
Here has been played nearly the same game in regard to wages, and with
the same results. We are now furnished with advices from the island down
to the 19th of December 1838. At the latter date the panic making papers
had tapered down their complainings to a very faint whisper, and withal
expressing more hope than fears. As the fruit of what they had already
done we are told by one of them, _the Barbadian_, that the unfavourable
news carried home by the packets after the emancipation had served to
raise the price of sugar in England, which object being accomplished, it
is hoped that they will intermit the manufacture of such news. The first
and most important document, and indeed of itself sufficient to save the
trouble of giving more, is the comparison of crime during two and a half
months of freedom, and the corresponding two and a half months of
slavery or apprenticeship last year, submitted to the legislature at the
opening of its session in the latter part of October. Here it is. We
hope it will be held up before every slave holder.
From the Barbadian of Dec. 1.
Barbados.--Comparative Table, exhibiting the number of Complaints
preferred against the Apprentice population of this Colony, in the
months of August, September and to the 15th of October, 1838; together
with the Complaints charged against Free Labourers of the same Colony,
during the months of August, September and to the 15th of October, 1838.
The former compiled from the Monthly Journals of the Special Justice of
the Peace and the latter from the Returns of the Local Magistracy
transmitted to his excellency the Governor
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