rs. The former has passed a law to pay the
passage money of any laborer who comes to the Island, leaving him
free to choose him employment. Demerara and Berbize have sent
Emigration agents to this and other islands, to induce the laborers
to join those colonies, offering high wages, good treatment, &c. On
the other hand, Barbados, Grenada, St. Vincent, and all the old and
populous islands, individually and collectively, by legislative
resolves, legal enactments, &c. &c.--loudly protest that they have
_not a man to spare_! What is still better, the old island
proprietors are on every hand building new houses for the peasantry,
and with great forethought adding to their comfort; knowing that
they will thereby secure their contentment on their native soil. As
a pleasing instance of the good understanding which now exists
between proprietors and laborers, I will mention, that great numbers
of the former were in town on the 24th, buying up pork, hams, rice,
&c. as presents for their people on the ensuing Christmas; a day
which has this year passed by amid scenes of quiet Sabbath
devotions, a striking contrast to the tumult and drunkenness of
former times. I cannot close this subject, without beating my
testimony to the correctness of the statements made by our
countrymen, Thome and Kimball. They were highly esteemed here by all
classes, and had free access to every source of valuable
information. If they have not done justice to the subject of their
book, it is because the manifold blessings of a deliverance from
slavery are beyond the powers of language to represent. When I
attempt, as I have done in this letter, to enumerate a few of the, I
know not where to begin, or where to end. One must _see_, in order
to know and feel how unspeakable a boon these islands have
received,--a boon, which is by no means confined to the emancipated
slaves; but, like the dew and rains of heaven, it fell upon all the
inhabitants of the land, bond and free, rich and poor, together.

It is a common thing here, when you hear one speak of the benefits
of emancipation--the remark--that it ought to have taken place long
ago. Some say fifty years ago, some twenty, and some, that at any
rate it ought to have taken place all at once, without any
apprenticeship. The noon-day sun is not clearer than the fact, that