was as common as
to strike a horse--then the punishments were inflicted so unjustly, in
innumerable instances, that the poor victims knew no more why they were
punished than the dead in their graves. The master would be a little
ill--he had taken a cold, perhaps, and felt irritable--something were
wrong--his passion was up, and away went some poor fellow to the
whipping post. The slightest offence at such a moment, though it might
have passed unnoticed at another time, would meet with the severest
punishment. He said he himself had more than once ordered his slaves to
be flogged in a passion, and after he became cool he would have given
guineas not to have done it. Many a night had he been kept awake in
thinking of some poor fellow whom he had shut up in the dungeon, and had
rejoiced when daylight came. He feared lest the slave might die before
morning; either cut his throat or dash his head against the wall in his
desperation. He has known such cases to occur.

The apprenticeship will not have so beneficial an effect as he hoped it
would, on account of an indisposition on the part of many of the
planters to abide by its regulations. The planters generally are doing
very little to prepare the apprentices for freedom; but some are doing
very much to unprepare them. They are driving the people from them by
their conduct.

Mr. C. said he often wished for emancipation. There were several other
planters among his acquaintance who had the same feelings, but did not
dare express them. Most of the planters, however, were violently
opposed. Many of them declared that emancipation could not and should
not take place. So obstinate were they, that they would have sworn on
the 31st of July, 1831, that emancipation could not happen. _These very
men now see and acknowledge the benefits which have resulted from the
new system_.

The first of August passed off very quietly. The people labored on that
day as usual, and had a stranger gone over the island, he would not have
suspected any change had taken place. Mr. C. did not expect his people
would go to work that day. He told them what the conditions of the new
system were, and that after the first of August, they would be required
to turn out to work at six o'clock instead of five o'clock as before. At
the appointed hour every man was at his post in the field. Not one
individual was missing.

The apprentices do more work in the nine hours required by law, than in
twelve hours dur