rtain all those
who were non-praedials, that they might be recorded as the subjects of
emancipation in 1838. To his astonishment he found numbers of this class
who expressed a wish to remain apprentices until 1840. On one estate,
six out of eight took this course, on another, twelve out of fourteen,
and in some instances, _all_ the non-praedials determined to suffer it
out with the rest of their brethren, refusing to accept freedom until
with the whole body they could rise up and shout the jubilee of
universal disinthrallment. Here is a nobility worthy to compare with the
patience of the praedials. In connection with the conduct of the
non-praedials, he mentioned the following instance of white brutality
and negro magnanimity. A planter, whose negroes he was classifying,
brought forward a woman whom he claimed as a praedial. The woman
declared that she was a non-praedial, and on investigation it was
clearly proved that she had always been a domestic; and consequently
entitled to freedom in 1838. After the planter's claim was set aside,
the woman said, "_Now_ I will stay with massa, and be his 'prentice for
de udder two year."

Shortly before we left the Bay, our landlady, a colored woman,
introduced one of her neighbors, whose conversation afforded us a rare
treat. She was a colored lady of good appearance and lady like manners.
Supposing from her color that she had been prompted by strong sympathy
in our objects to seek an interview with us, we immediately introduced
the subject of slavery, stating that as we had a vast number of slaves
in our country, we had visited Jamaica to see how the freed people
behaved, with the hope that our countrymen might be encouraged to adopt
emancipation. "Alack a day!" The tawny madam shook her head, and, with
that peculiar creole whine, so expressive of contempt, said, "Can't say
any thing for you, sir--they not doing no good now, sir--the negroes
an't!"--and on she went abusing the apprentices, and denouncing
abolition. No American white lady could speak more disparagingly of the
niggers, than did this recreant descendant of the negro race. They did
no work, they stole, were insolent, insubordinate, and what not.

She concluded in the following elegiac strain, which did not fail to
touch our sympathies. "I can't tell what will become of us after 1840.
Our negroes will be taken away from us--we shall find no work to do
ourselves--we shall all have to beg, and who shall we beg from? _A