respecting emancipation.

Mr. Hinkston has been a planter for thirty-six years, and is highly
esteemed throughout the island. The estate which he manages, ranks among
the first in the island. It comprises six hundred acres of superior
land, has a population of two hundred apprentices, and yields an average
crop of one hundred and eighty hogsheads. Together with his long
experience and standing as a planter, Mr. H. has been for many years
local magistrate for the parish in which he resides. From these
circumstances combined, we are induced to give his opinions on a variety
of points.

1. He remarked that the planters were getting along _infinitely_ better
under the new system than they ever did under the old. Instead of
regretting that the change had taken place, he is looking forward with
pleasure to a better change in 1840, and he only regrets that it is not
to come sooner.

2. Mr. H. said it was generally conceded that the island was never under
better cultivation than at the present time. The crops for this year
will exceed the average by several thousand hogsheads. The canes were
planted in good season, and well attended to afterwards.

3. Real estate has risen very much since emancipation. Mr. H. stated
that he had lately purchased a small sugar estate, for which he was
obliged to give several hundred pounds more than it would have cost him
before 1834.

4. There is not the least sense of insecurity now. Before emancipation
there was much fear of insurrection, but that fear passed away
with slavery.

5. The prospect for 1840 is good. That people have no fear of ruin after
emancipation, is proved by the building of sugar works on estates which
never had any before, and which were obliged to cart their canes to
neighbouring estates to have them ground and manufactured. There are
also numerous improvements making on the larger estates. Mr. H. is
preparing to make a new mill and boiling-house on Colliton, and other
planters are doing the same. Arrangements are making too in various
directions to build new negro villages on a more commodious plan.

6. Mr. H. says he finds his apprentices perfectly ready to work for
wages during their own time. Whenever he needs their labor on Saturday,
he has only to ask them, and they are ready to go to the mill, or field
at once. There has not been an instance on Colliton estate in which the
apprentices have refused to work, either during the hours required by
law, or during