engers. These servants
or messengers take days in a particular service, according to the
distance. The latter mode is particularly expensive. The other, the
most general, is scarcely less so, except that from the construction
of West Indian society, there was beforetime felt no immediate outlay
for the service required.

Important supplies are required upon an estate for various purposes.
This is of very frequent occurrence. A special messenger from that
estate must be despatched with a letter ordering the same, to a (p. 055)
distance of twenty or thirty miles, or more. Two or three days'
labour are lost, an expense of 4_s._ or 5_s._ incurred, while 1_s._
for letters by post, if there was a post, would accomplish the object.
This is merely one point brought forward in proof of the necessity of
internal post conveyances in the British West Indian colonies, as in
this country, out of the multitudes that could be adduced for a
similar purpose.

The state of society in the West Indies is now on the eve of being
completely changed, and assimilated to the society in this country;
and consequently the duty of the Government of this country ought to
bestow on the population of the colonies the same facilities of
communication which the population of the mother country enjoy.

When the Negro apprenticeship comes to an end, either partially or
totally, the expense to estates and individuals for servants or
messengers to carry the correspondence absolutely necessary, will be
exceedingly great, and a most serious burden; and yet it must be
borne,--or otherwise, without internal post communications, neither
cultivation nor commerce can be carried on.

It is absolutely necessary for the future well-being of these
colonies, that internal post communications should be extended to, and
established in each of them.

Jamaica (and perhaps it stands single in this respect) has an internal
post communication once a week, to and from Kingston, and other
quarters of the island (daily only with Spanish Town, the capital);
still this weekly post is greatly inadequate to its present wants, and
will be much more so after August 1838, and August 1840. In
consequence of this restricted communication, no other part of the
island, Spanish Town excepted, knows of a packet's arrival until it is
gone, or till it is too late to write by it. This important colony
ought not only to have mails from Kingston at least three times a
week, but the vari