are entertained that Demerara will
be ruined after 1840. On the contrary it will be greatly benefited by
emancipation. It is now suffering from a want of laborers, and after
1840 there will be an increased emigration to that colony from the older
and less productive colonies. The planters of Demerara are making
arrangements for cultivating sugar on a larger scale than ever before.
Estates are selling at very high prices. Every thing indicates the
fullest confidence on the part of the planters that the prosperity of
the colony will not only be permanent, but progressive.
After breakfast we proceeded to the Society's estate. We were glad to
see this estate, as its history is peculiar. In 1726 it was bequeathed
by General Coddington to a society in England, called "The Society for
the promotion of Christian Knowledge." The proceeds of the estate were
to be applied to the support of an institution in Barbadoes, for
educating missionaries of the established order. Some of the provisions
of the will were that the estate should always have three hundred slaves
upon it; that it should support a school for the education of the negro
children who were to be taught a portion of every day until they were
twelve years old, when they were to go into the field; and that there
should be a chapel built upon it. The negroes belonging to the estate
have for upwards of a hundred years been under this kind of instruction.
They have all been taught to read, though in many instances they have
forgotten all they learned, having no opportunity to improve after they
left school. They enjoy some other comforts peculiar to the Society's
estate. They have neat cottages built apart--each on a half-acre lot,
which belongs to the apprentice and for the cultivation of which he is a
allowed one day out of the five working days. Another peculiarity is,
that the men and women work in separate gangs.
At this estate we procured horses to ride to the College. We rode by the
chapel and school-house belonging to the Society's estate which are
situated on the row of a high hill. From the same hill we caught a view
of Coddrington college, which is situated on a low bottom extending from
the foot of the rocky cliff on which we stood to the sea shore, a space
of quarter of a mile. It is a long, narrow, ill-constructed edifice.
We called on the principal, Rev. Mr. Jones, who received us very
cordially, and conducted us over the buildings and the grounds connec
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