measure had hardly come into operation, when all men perceived that the intermediate state of apprenticeship was anything rather than a preparation for freedom, and anything rather than a mitigation of slavery. It is due to some able and distinguished friends of the negro race to state, that they all along were averse to this plan of a transition state. Lord Howick, then in the Colonial Office as Under-Secretary, went so far as to leave the department, from his dislike of this part of the measure. Mr. Buxton and others protested against it. Even its friends intimated that they wished the period of apprenticeship to end in 1838 instead of 1840; but there was a general belief of the preparatory step being necessary,—a belief apparently founded on experience of the negro character, and indeed of the vicious tendency of all slavery, to extinguish the power of voluntary labour, as well as to make the sudden change to freedom unsafe for the peace of the community. The fact soon dispersed these opinions. Antigua in a minute emancipated all her slaves to the number of thirty thousand and upwards. Not a complaint was ever heard of idleness or indolence; and, far from any breach of the peace being induced by the sudden change in the condition of the people, the Christmas of 1833 was the first, for the last twenty years, that martial law was not proclaimed, in order to preserve the public peace. Similar evidence from Jamaica and other islands, proving the industrious and peaceable habits of the apprentices, showed that there was nothing peculiar in the circumstances of Antigua.

An important occurrence is now to be recorded as having exercised a powerful influence upon the question of immediate emancipation. Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, a member of the Society of Friends, stricken with a sense of the injustice perpetrated against the African race, repaired to the West Indies, in order that he might examine, with his own eyes, the real state of the question between the two classes. He was accompanied by John Scoble and Thomas Harvey; and these able, excellent, and zealous men returned in a few months with such ample evidence of the effects produced by apprenticeship, and the fitness of the negroes for liberty, that the attention of the community was soon awakened to the subject, even more strenuously than it ever before had been; and the walls of Parliament were soon made once more to ring with the sufferings of the slave, only emancipated in name, and the injustice of withholding from him any longer the freedom which was his indefeasible right, as soon as he was shown capable of enjoying it beneficially for himself and safely for the rest of the community.

In these transactions, both in Jamaica, where he is one of the largest planters, and in Parliament, where he is one of the most respected members, the Marquess of Sligo bore an eminent and an honourable part. His praise has been justly sounded by all who have supported the cause of negro freedom, and his conduct was by all admitted to be as much marked by the disinterested virtue of a good citizen and amiable man, as it was by the sagacity and ability of an enlightened statesman. Both as governor of Jamaica, as the owner of slaves whom he voluntarily liberated, and as a peer of Parliament, his patriotism, his humanity, and his talents, shone conspicuously through this severe and glorious struggle. While such was the conduct of those eminent philanthropists, some difference of opinion prevailed among the other and older leaders of the cause, chiefly grounded upon doubts whether the arrangement made by Parliament in 1833, might not be regarded as a compact with the planters which it would be unjust to violate by terminating their right to the labour of the apprentices at a period earlier than the one fixed in the Emancipation Act. A little consideration of the question at issue soon dispelled those doubts, and removed every obstacle to united exertion, by restoring entire unanimity of opinion. The slaves, it was triumphantly affirmed, were no party to the compact. But moreover, the whole arrangement of the apprenticeship was intended as a benefit to them, by giving them the preparation thought to be required before they could, safely for themselves, be admitted to unrestricted freedom,—not as a benefit to the planters, whose acquiescence was purchased with the grant of twenty millions. Experience having shown that no preparation at all was required, it was preposterous to continue the restraint upon natural liberty an hour longer, as regarded the negroes,—the only party whom we had any right to consider in the question; and as for the planters there was the grossest absurdity in further regarding any interests or any claims of theirs. The arrangement of 1833, as far as regards the transition or intermediate state, had been made under an error in fact, an error propagated by the representations of the masters. That error was now at an end, and an immediate alteration of the provisions to which it had given rise was thus a matter of strict justice;—not to mention that the planters had failed to perform their part of the contract. The Colonial Assemblies had, except in Antigua, done nothing for the slave in return for the large sum bestowed upon the West India body. So that in any view there was an end of all pretext for the further delay of right and justice.

The ground now taken by the whole Abolitionists; therefore, both in and out of Parliament was, that the two years which remained of the indentured apprenticeship must immediately be cut off, and freedom given to the slaves in August, 1838, instead of 1840; The peace of the West Indian community, and the real interests of the planters, were affirmed to be as much concerned in this change as the rights of the negroes themselves. Far from preparing them for becoming peaceable subjects and contented members of society at the end of their apprenticeship, those two years of compulsory labour would, it was justly observed, be a period of heart-burning and discontent between master and servant, which must, in the mean while, be dangerous to the peace of society, and must leave, at the end of the time, a feeling of mutual ill-will and distrust. The question could no longer be kept from the cognizance of the negro people. Indeed, their most anxious expectations were already pointed towards immediate liberty, and their strongest feelings were roused to obtain it.

Of these sentiments the whole community partook; meetings were everywhere held; petitions crowded the tables of Parliament; the press poured forth innumerable tracts which were eagerly received; the pulpit lent its aid to this holy cause; and discussions upon petitions and upon incidental motions shook the walls of Parliament, while they stimulated the zeal of the people. The Government adopted an unfortunate course, which contributed greatly to weaken their hold on the confidence and affections of the country; they resisted all the motions that were made on behalf of the slaves, and appeared to regard only the interests of the master, turning a deaf ear to the arguments of right and of justice.

It was found, during the course of these debates, that a new Slave Trade had sprung up in the East Indies, with the sanction of an English Order in Council. Under pretence that hands were wanted to cultivate their estates, the Demerara planters had obtained permission to import what they termed, with a delicacy borrowed from the vocabulary of the African Slave Trade, "labourers" from Asia and from Africa east of the Cape, and to make them Indentured Apprentices for a term of years. No restrictions whatever were imposed by this unheard-of Order. No tonnage was required in proportion to the numbers shipped, no amount of provision, no medical assistance; no precautions were taken, or so much as thought of, to prevent kidnapping and fraud, nay, to prevent main force being used in any part of Eastern Africa, or of all Asia, in carrying on board the victims of West Indian avarice; in short, a worse Slave Trade than the African was established, and all the dominions of