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witnesses; in a few instances, in which we were requested to withhold
the name, we shall state such circumstances as will serve to show the
standing and competency of the individuals. If the reader should find in
what follows, very little testimony unfavorable to emancipation, he may
know the reason to be, that little was to be gleaned from any part of
Antigua. Indeed, we may say that, with very few exceptions, the
sentiments here recorded as coming from individuals, are really the
sentiments of the whole community. There is no such thing known in
Antigua as an _opposing, disaffected party_. So complete and thorough
has been the change in public opinion, that it would be now
_disreputable_ to speak against emancipation.

FIRST PROPOSITION.--The transition from slavery to freedom is
represented as a greet revolution, by which a prodigious change was
effected in _the condition of the negroes_.

In conversation with us, the planters often spoke of the greatness and
suddenness of the change. Said Mr. Barnard, of Green Castle estate, "The
transition from slavery to freedom, was like passing suddenly out of a
dark dungeon into the light of the sun."

R.B. Eldridge, Esq., a member of the assembly, remarked, that, "There
never had been in the history of the world so great and instantaneous a
change in the condition of so large a body of people."

The Honorable Nicholas Nugent, speaker of the house of assembly, and
proprietor, said, "There never was so sudden a transition from one state
to another, by so large a body of people. When the clock began to strike
the hour of twelve on the last night of July, 1834, the negroes of
Antigua were _slaves_--when it ceased they were all _freemen!_ It was a
stupendous change," he said, "and it was one of the sublimest spectacles
ever witnessed, to see the subjects of the change engaged at the very
moment it occurred, in worshipping God."

These, and very many similar ones, were the spontaneous expressions of
men _who had long contended against the change_ of which they spoke.

It is exceedingly difficult to make slaveholders see that there is any
material difference between slavery and freedom; but when they have once
renounced slavery, they _will magnify this distinction_ more than any
other class of men.

SECOND PROPOSITION.--Emancipation in Antigua was the result of political
and pecuniary considerations merely.

Abolition was seen to be inevitable, and there were but two cour