A few
weeks since he discharged two magistrates for putting iron collars on
two women, in direct violation of the law, and then sending him
false reports.

7. The negro grounds are often at a great distance, five or six miles,
and some of them fifteen miles, from the plantation. Of course much
time, which would otherwise be spent in cultivating them, is necessarily
consumed in going to them and returning. Yet for all that, and though in
many cases the planters have withdrawn the watchmen who used to protect
them, and have left them entirely exposed to thieves and cattle, they
are generally well cultivated--on the whole, better than during slavery.
When there is inattention to them, it is caused either by some planters
hiring them during their own time, or because their master permits his
cattle to trespass on them, and the people feel an insecurity. When you
find a kind planter, in whom the apprentices have confidence, there you
will find beautiful gardens. In not a few instances, where the overseer
is particularly harsh and cruel, the negroes have thrown up their old
grounds, and taken new ones on other plantations, where the overseer is
better liked, or gone into the depths of the mountain forests, where no
human foot has been before them, and there cleared up small plats. This
was also done to some extent during slavery. Many of the people, against
whom the planters are declaiming as lazy and worthless, have rich
grounds of which those planters little dream.

8. There is no feeling of insecurity, either of life or property. One
may travel through the whole island without the least fear of violence.
If there is any danger, it is from the _emigrants_, who have been guilty
of several outrages. So far from the planters fearing violence from the
apprentices, when an assault or theft is committed, they refer it,
almost as a matter of course, to some one else. A few weeks ago one of
the island mails was robbed. As soon as it became known, it was at once
said, "Some of those villanous emigrants did it," and so indeed
it proved.

People in the country, in the midst of the mountains, where the whites
are few and isolated, sleep with their doors and windows open, without a
thought of being molested. In the towns there are no watchmen, and but a
small police, and yet the streets are quiet and property safe.

9. The apprentices understand the great provisions of the new system,
such as the number of hours they must work for