places, the cultivation
of the soil was not resumed. Upon the planting attorneys, so long
accustomed to tyranny and oppression, and armed with a power over the
land which must prove inimical to the full development of the resources
of this valuable colony, the blame entirely rests.

We suppose that your lordship is fully aware, that the laws under which
the laborer is now placed are tyrannical and unjust in the extreme;
laws, we hesitate not to affirm, which are a disgrace to those who
framed them, and which, if acted upon by a local magistracy, will entail
upon the oft-cheated, over-patient negro some of the worst features of
that degrading state of vassalage from which he has just escaped. We
particularly refer to "An Act to enlarge the Powers of Justices in
determining complaints between Masters and Servants, and between
Masters, and Apprentices, Artificers, and others," which passed the
Assembly the 3rd day of July, 1834, while by police acts, especially one
regulating the town of Falmouth, our people will be daily harassed
and annoyed.

We think it right to inform your lordship, that the greater part of
those who hold the commission of magistrates are the very persons who,
by their connection with the soil, are the most unfit, because the most
interested, honestly to discharge their important duties; while their
ignorance of the law is, in too many cases, equalled only by their love
of tyranny and misrule. Time must work a mighty change in the views of
numbers who hold this office, ere they believe there is any dereliction
of duty in daily defrauding the humble African. We cannot but entreat
your lordship to use those means which are in your power to obtain for
the laborer, who imploringly looks to the Queen for protection, justice
at the hands of those by whom the law is administered. We must, indeed,
be blind to all passing events, did we not see that, without the
watchful care of the home government, the country district courts, held
sometimes in the very habitations of those who will have to make the
complaints, will be dens of injustice and cruelty, and that our hearts
will again be lacerated by the oppressions under which our beloved
people will groan.

We beg to apprise your lordship, that we have every reason to believe
that an early attempt will be made to deprive the peasantry of their
provision grounds--that they will not be permitted, even to rent them;
so that, by producing starvation and rendering