ncerning the fate of the island after 1840; but he
considered them very absurd.

Although this planter looked forward with sanguine hopes to 1840, yet he
would freely say that he did not think the apprenticeship would be any
preparation for entire freedom. The single object with the great
majority of the planters seemed to be to _get as much out_ of the
apprentices as they possibly could during the term. No attention had
been paid to preparing the apprentices for freedom.

We were introduced to a planter who was notorious during the reign of
slavery for the _strictness of his discipline_, to use the Barbadian
phrase, or, in plain English, for his rigorous treatment and
his cruelty.

He is the proprietor of three sugar estates and one cotton plantation in
Barbadoes, on all of which there are seven hundred apprentices. He was a
luxurious looking personage, bottle-cheeked and huge i' the midst, and
had grown fat on slaveholding indulgences. He mingled with every
sentence he uttered some profane expression, or solemn appeal to his
"honor," and seemed to be greatly delighted with hearing himself talk.
He displayed all those prejudices which might naturally be looked for in
a mind educated and trained as his had been. As to the conduct of the
apprentices, he said they were peaceable and industrious, and mostly
well disposed. But after all, the negroes were a perverse race of
people. It was a singular fact, he said, that the severer the master,
the better the apprentices. When the master was mild and indulgent, they
were sure to be lazy, insolent, and unfaithful. _He knew this by
experience; this was the case with_ his _apprentices_. His house-servants
especially were very bad. But there was one complaint he had against
them all, domestics and praedials--they always hold him to the letter of
the law, and are ready to arraign him before the special magistrate for
every infraction of it on his part, however trifling. How ungrateful,
truly! After being provided for with parental care from earliest
infancy, and supplied yearly with two suits of clothes, and as many yams
is they could eat and only having to work thirteen or fifteen hours per
day in return; and now when they are no longer slaves, and new
privileges are conferred to exact them to the full extent of the law
which secures them--what ingratitude! How soon are the kindnesses of the
past, and the hand that bestowed them, forgotten! Had these people
possessed the sentim