they were opposed to their _receiving
education_. A company of the first-gentlemen of that parish, consisting
of the rector of the parish, the custos, the special magistrate, an
attorney, and member of the assembly, etc., had mustered in imposing
array, and proceeded to one of the large estates in the Plantain Garden
River Valley, and there having called the apprentices together, made the
following proposals to them respecting their free children, the rector
acting as spokesman. The attorney would provide a teacher for the
estate, and would give the children four hours' instruction daily, if
the parents would _bind them to work_ four hours every day; the attorney
further offered to pay for all medical attendance the children should
require. The apprentices, after due deliberation among themselves,
unanimously declined this proposition. It was repeatedly urged upon
them, and the advantages it promised were held up to them; but they
persisted in declining it wholly. This was a great marvel to the
planters; and they could not account for it in any other way than by
supposing that the apprentices were opposed both to labor and education,
and were determined that their free children should grow up in ignorance
and indolence! Now the true reason why the apprentices rejected this
proposal was, _because it came from the planters_, in whom they have no
confidence. They suspected that some evil scheme was hid under the fair
pretence of benevolence; the design of the planters, as they firmly
believed, was to get their _free children bound to them_, so that they
might continue to keep them in a species of apprenticeship. This was
stated to us, as the real ground of the rejection, by several
missionaries, who gave the best evidence that it was so; viz. that at
the same time that the apprentices declined the offer, they would send
their free children _six or eight miles to a school taught by a
missionary_. We inquired particularly of some of the apprentices, to
whom this offer was made, why they did not accept it. They said that
they could not trust their masters; the whole design of it was to get
them to give up their children, and if they should give them up _but for
a single month_, it would be the same as acknowledging that they (the
parents) were not able to take care of them themselves. The busha would
then send word to the Governor that the people had given up their
children, not being able to support them, and the Governor woul