m give as we left the steamer at Kingston, was to put
two of the men _in irons_.]

It is not a little remarkable that the apprenticeship should be regarded
by the planters themselves, as well as by other persons generally
throughout the colony, as merely a modified form of slavery. It is
common to hear it called 'slavery under a different form,' 'another name
for slavery,'--'modified slavery,' 'but little better than slavery.'

Nor is the practical operation of the system upon the _master_ much less
exceptionable. It takes out of his hand the power of coercing labor, and
provides no other stimulus. Thus it subjects him to the necessity either
of resorting to empty threats, which must result only in incessant
disputes, or of condescending to persuade and entreat, against which his
habits at once rebel, or of complaining to a third party--an alternative
more revolting if possible, than the former, since it involves the
acknowledgment of a higher power than his own. It sets up over his
actions a foreign judge, at whose bar he is alike amenable (in theory)
with his apprentice, before whose tribunal he may be dragged at any
moment by his apprentice, and from whose lips he may receive the
humiliating sentence of punishment in the presence of his apprentice. It
introduces between him and his laborers, mutual repellancies and
estrangement; it encourages the former to exercise an authority which he
would not venture to assume under a system of perfect freedom; it
emboldens the latter to display an insolence which he would not have
dreamed of in a state of slavery, and thus begetting in the one, the
imperiousness of the slaveholder _without his power_, and in the other,
the independence of the freeman _without his immunities_, it perpetuates
a scene of angry collision, jealousy and hatred.

It does not even serve for the master the unworthy purpose for which it
was mainly devised, viz., that of an additional compensation. The
apprenticeship is estimated to be more expensive than a system of free
labor would be. It is but little less expensive than slavery, and
freedom it is confidently expected will be considerably less. So it
would seem that this system burthens the master with much of the
perplexity, the ignominy and the expensiveness of slavery, while it
denies him its power. Such is the apprenticeship system. A splendid
imposition!--which cheats the planter of his gains, cheats the British
nation of its money, and robs the