petitioners. Hill remained several years in England and contributed
largely by his pen and his speeches to enlighten the public mind of
England as to the real character of West Indian slavery. But the
remittances from the "people of color" in Jamaica, never very large,
soon became few and far between. So Hill, always independent in every
way, even in his friendships and political alliances, maintained
himself and his sister, Jane, almost entirely by his contributions,
literary and scientific, to several popular newspapers and
periodicals.[4]

After a residence of several years in England, Hill was sent by the
Anti-Slavery Society on a visit to San Domingo, chiefly for the
purpose of ascertaining by personal observation and inquiry what was
the actual social and political condition of the people of that
island.[5] But his commission had a more extensive object than that
attached to it, which, however, directed him to obtain besides all the
information he possibly could concerning the natural resources of
every part of the country through which he was to travel. San Domingo
was then under the wise and able rule of President Boyer, the whole
island forming one undivided republic, enjoying internal tranquillity,
and being in a comparatively flourishing condition. On his way from
England to Port-au-Prince, where he arrived on the sixteenth of June,
1830, Hill visited France staying there a few months. He spent nearly
two years in San Domingo travelling incessantly and making notes about
everything. He has left more than one sketch-book full of sketches
showing a knowledge of perspective, a keen eye for the picturesque and
a true artist's feeling. He sailed from San Domingo for England on the
third of May, 1832, and then for Jamaica a few months after, never
again to quit his native country. In that year he was made justice of
the peace for Trelawny.

He was never greedy for money and seems to have been ill-paid for his
labors in San Domingo. Upon his return to Jamaica either on that
account or from motives of policy he ceased all communication with the
Anti-Slavery Society, and only now and then did he write to one or two
of its members, and even then more as personal friends than as old
political allies.

On the third of February, 1834, Hill was appointed one of a number of
forty stipendiary magistrates whose duty it was to adjudicate between
the former slaveholders and their "apprentices."[6] This appointment
he held