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Show 14 opportunity to enlighten the people on all the duties and responsibilities of their new relation, an~l urgu~g them .to the attainment of thut higher liberty wtth whtch Chnst makcth his children free. In every quarter, we were assured, the day was like a sabbath. Work had ceased. The hum of business was still: tranquillity pervaded the towns and country. The planters informed us, that they went to the chnpcls where their own people were assembled, greeted them, shook hands with them, and exchanged the most hearty "OOd wishes. At Grace Hill, there were at least. a thousa~d persons around the Moravian Chapel who could not get in. For once the house of God suffered violence and the violent took it uy force. At Grace Bay, the peOJ;le, all dressed in white, formed a procession, and walked arm in arm into the chapel. We were told that the dress of the negroes on that occasion was unco~1~only simple and modest. There was not the least disposJlJon to gaiety. '1-,hroughout the island, there was not a stnglc dance known of, either day or night, nor so much as a fiddle played." . On the next Monday morning, with very few exceptwns, every negro on eve ry plantation was in the. field at his worlc In some places, they ·waited to see the1r master, to know what bargain he would mal\e; but, for the most part, throughout tile islands, nothing painful occurred. In June, 1835, the ministers, Lord Aberdeen and S ir George Grey, declared to the Parliament, that the system worked well ; that now for ten months, from 1st August, 1831, no injury or violence had been oOered to any white, and only one black had been hurt in 800,000 negroes: and, contrary to many sinister predictions, that the new crop of island produce would not fall short of that of the last year. But tile habit of oppression was not destroyed by a law and a day of jubilee. It soon appeared in all the islands, that the planters were disposed to use their old privileges, 15 and overwork the apprentices; to take from them, under various pretences, their fourth part of their time; and. to exert tile same licentious despotism as before. The negroes compluincd to the magistrates, and to the governor. In the island of Jamaica, this ill blood continually grew worse. 'l'he governors, Lord Belmore, the Earl of S ligo, anu afterwards Sir Lionel Smith, (a governor of their own class, who had been sent out to gratify the planters,) threw thcmselres on the side of tile oppressed, and arc at constant quarrel with the angry anJ bilious island legislature. Nothing can exceed the ill humor and sulkiness of the addresses of this asscmblv. I may here express a ~eneral remark, which the history of slave ry seems to justify, that it is not founded solely on the avarice of the planter. We sometimes say, the planter does not want slaves, he only wants the immunities and tl~e lu~uries which the slaves yield him; give him money, g1ve hun a machine that will yield him as much money as the slaves, and he will thankfully let them go. He has no love of sla\'ery, he wants lu xury, and he will pay even this price of crime and danger for it. But I thiuk experie nce does not warrant this favorable distinction, !Jut shows the existence, Ucside the covetousuess, of a bitterer element, the lo1·e of power, the voluptuousness of holding a human being in his absolute contro l. We sometimes observe, that spoiled children contract a habit of annoying quite wantonly those who hare charge of them, and seem to measure their own sense of well-being, not by what they do, but by the degree of reaction they can cause. It is vain to get rid of them by not minding them: if purring nnd humming is not noticed, they squeal and screech ; then if you chiue and console them, they find the experiment succeeds, and they begin again. The child will sit in your arms contented, provided you do nothing. If you take n book and read, he commences hostile |