pithets were too
vile for them--no curses too bitter. It was a Barbadian lady who once
exclaimed in a public company in England, "O, I wish we had Wilberforce
in the West Indies, I would be one of the very first to tear his heart
out!" If such a felon wish could escape the lips of a female, and that
too amid the awing influence of English society, what may we conclude
were the feelings of planters and drivers on the island!

The opposition was maintained even after the abolition of slavery; and
there was no colony, save Jamaica, with which the English government had
so much trouble in arranging the provisions and conditions under which
abolition was to take place.

From statements already made, the reader will see how great a change has
come over the feelings of the planters.

He has followed us through this and the preceding chapters, he has seen
tranquillity taking the place of insurrections, a sense of security
succeeding to gloomy forbodings, and public order supplanting mob law;
he has seen subordination to authority, peacefulness, industry, and
increasing morality, characterizing the negro population; he has seen
property rising in value, crime lessening, expenses of labor
diminishing, the whole island blooming with unexampled cultivation, and
waving with crops unprecedented in the memory of its inhabitants; above
all, he has seen licentiousness decreasing, prejudice fading away,
marriage extending, education spreading, and religion preparing to
multiply her churches and missionaries over the land.

_These_ are the blessing of abolition--_begun_ only, and but partially
realized as yet, but promising a rich maturity in time to come, after
the work of freedom shall have been completed.

CHAPTER V.

THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM.

The nature of the apprenticeship system may be learned form the
following abstract of its provisions, relative to the three parties
chiefly concerned in its operation--the special magistrate, the master,
and the apprentice.

PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATES.

1. They must be disconnected with planters and plantership, that they
may be independent of all colonial parties and interests whatever.

2. The special magistrates adjudicate only in cases where the master and
apprentice are parties. Offences committed by apprentices against any
person not connected with the estates on which they live, come under the
cognizance of the local magistrates or of higher courts.