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acted upon in unison with a large potion of the proprietary
body, we should have done little good ; nobody could foresee
what preparatory steps would be advisable ; and a treatment
of the people by any individual landowner in advance of the
adjoinin; properties, has always met with an unsatisfactory •
as well as a most ungrateful return, in consequence of the
standard of feeling all around being below that of those so
partially benefitted on any one property. No greater exam-
ple of this truth can be quoted than what the History of the
Estates of Codrington College can produce. Bishop Porteus,
writing in 1784, just half a century previous to the act for
abolishing slavery, thus describes the endeavours of the trus-
tees to benefit the negroes on that estate : " This society has
repeatedly and earnestly enjoined their managers and agents
in Barbadoes to treat their slaves with lenity and tenderness.
They have for many years maintained a Catechist in Orders
on the plantation, whose sole business it is to train up the
negroes in the principles of religion, and to perform divine
service for their benefit on the Lord's day. And that the
slaves may have leisure to attend this and other religious
duties, the society has humanely given them the afternoon of
Saturday for cultivating their own land, and attending to
their own family affairs." Religious edt;cation and the Sa-
turday bolyday was therefore given up to the slave on this
property fifty years ago, yet I could not learn that the Cod-
rington Estate is better off at the present day than its neigh-
bours in the island of Barbadocs, nor that the negroes have
evinced a better result fro:n this good preparation for the
change, than those, among whom no such ameliorations had
been introduced ; nor did I find that they worked with more
steadiness and fidelity than their neighbours. I write this
with some despondency for the future success of the great
experiment through the West Indies; but I believe it to be
principally owing to what I have already stated,—namely,
that no material benefit is at any time derived from being
in advance of the general feeling that is entertained on any
subject.

CONDITION OF TIM NEGROES.
Upon a calm review of all the impressions left on my
mind, after a four months' journey through the Windward
Colonies, I am forced to the conviction that a whole genera-
tion must pass away before the negro, in a state of freedom,
will attain, in his social condition, to anything approaching
the civilisation of the European peasant, or will work with
anything like the constancy and steadiness that is essential
to the profitable culture of the land. Nor will this be sur-
prising to a reflecting mind ; for if it " takes three genera-
tions to make a gentleman," how much more must it require
to make a barbarian civilised ? The endeavour to do this by
steam-power and stove-heat only produces an unnatural
growth, in which the vices of the European and African
united, are more sensibly perceived than the better qualities
of either. The simplicity of uncivilised life is sharpened
into cunning by " a little learning• ;" the contentedness of
an humble condition is roused into a restlessness, which
only cannot be dignified by the name of ambition, because
there is not sufficient knowledge of the world to know what
to aim at : whilst the sudden elevation in their condition
altogether prevents them from being satisfied with continuing
as they are. The very unfortunate distinction between
handicraftsmen and field-labourers introduced into the
Emancipation Bill under the whimsical terms of prfedial and
nonprsedial labourers (the sense of which the uegroes them-
selves could never be made to understand,) has unfortunately
operated to create a marked repugnance to field-labour, and
to consider it as a degradation from which every enterprising
spirit amongst them endeavours to free himself by repairing
to the Towns ; and those that remain on estates remove their
children thither to the care of relatives and friends, in order
that they may have an opportunity of becoming household
servants, the great field of ambition to a negro mind : ac-
cordingly it is comparatively rare to find the young perform-
ing laborious duties in the field. This is obviously a serious
consideration for the future well-doing of the system, since
it must alone diminish the amount of labourers in a very
considerable degree at the present time, and this will of
course be more seriously perceptible in future years.

DISPOSITION OF TILE NEGROES TO LABOUR.
I am convinced that, taking a general view of the state of
things in the Colonies I have visited, the disposition to do
any labour at all is but the result of old associations, which
no law could instantly stop. It is rather the habits of the
people to work, than their necessities, which urge them to
it; and iy is much more oting to the urgency of their em-
ployers, than the ordinary inducements to labour, that yet
continues for a time the cultivation of the soil. The fear
which every proprietor entertains of losing his people, has
induced him to concede everything, rather than be driven to
lose a labourer whom he has no opportunity of replacing.
Thus houses, provision grounds, and medical attendance—
three items in the economy of a European labourer, for
which he is forced to industry—are freely given to the negro,
besides wages of very considerable amount : with the last he
has alone to provide the raiment requisite for his family,
which i.; scarcely more than Sunday clothing; for in many
eases the labour in the field (especially in Guyana) is better
performed without any covering beyond *hat common
decency requires. sic has certainly to provide himself with
salt fish and meat, and any luxuries of food that he, may re-
quire ; but so lightly does this inducement press, that con-
tinuous labour is not found to prevail in any colony.

DIMINUTION OF LABOUR IN THE WEST INDIES.
I am given to understand since 1 left the West Indies,
that there was an evidently increasing indisposition among
the women to go into the fields for any work ; and ac-
cordingly the extent of cultivation must be again diminished.
to the extent of the women as well as children, who are to.
be no longer considered as field labourers. It was one of
the evil, results of the indiscreet haste with which complete
emancipation was pressed upon the Colonies, that questions
of most material importance for the labourer as well as his
employer were altogether left unsettled ; such as the amount
of the remuneration of labour, the tenancy of their dwellings,
the penalties attached to vagrancy and idleness ; in truth,
all the duties as well as rights of the newly-acquired con-
dition of freedom were left vague, unsettled, and uncertain.
• The first and most important consideration, which in all old
settled countries obtains the level to which time and the
wants and habits of the people naturally reduce it, had to be
settled arbitrarily and in a moment by the attorneys and
managers of estates, (the representatives of the proprietary
body,) and entirely without any just data on which the fair
equivalent could be calculated. It is quite a marvel to me
how any common agreement could be arrived at under such
circumstances. There is no doubt, however, that the scale '
adopted was too high ; and every day's experience has con-
firmed this opinion. It was a very natural object with every
one to retain the old families upon the estates, and ac-
cordingly a fear to be outbid by the neighbours induced all
to concede with a liberal hand ; so that houses, provision
grounds, and medical attendance, were freely added to the
amount of money-wages, which were taken at the highest
calCulation of what had been paid during the apprenticeship,
and two shillings, and in some instances even two shillings
and sixpence a day, are now given. What, Imay be allowed
to inquire in passing, would a British agricultural labourer
think of wages taken on this calculation ?—Fifteen shillings
a week, in addition to the gratuitous tenancy of their cottages
and gardens, and the doctor's and the schoolmaster's bills
paid, would not be considered bad earnings in this " poor
state of England." I do not stop in this place to consider
what his employers n!ight be disposed to say of such a state
of things. Some of them, perhaps, thought strongly on the
subject of slavery ; perhaps some may be induced to think
of the heavy tax imposed upon them by the twenty millions;
yet, putting on one side all bygone considerations, they
might, perhaps, now cast a passing thought as to what• any
man would reasonably think of having to pay at this rate for
the value of labour which has been originally established on
which they- were to be retained ; so that, in a short time,
questions arose on the subject and in some instances summary
ejectment, in ethers a demand for rent, brought forward
points of law which it was not within the province of a magis-
trate to determine, nor within the compass of an uninformed
mind to understand the bearings. The Colonial Office has
been pleased to take upoa itself to provide for the colonies
the penalties to be attached to vagrancy and idleness, in con-
siderable ignorance of the society for which it legislates, and
with apparently the single object to make them as light as
possible ; but this law remains, I believe, nearly a dead
letter.
CONDUCT OF THE PLANTERS WITH RESPECT TO THE
SYSTEM OF FREE LABOUR. . .

I think it but justice to the planters generally, to state,
(and I must be allowed to mention those of Guyana more
particularly,) that if the experiment of free-labour in the
British colonies should unfortunately fail elsewhere, (as I
grieve to anticipate that it will in a very great measure do,)
the fault is not justly chargeable upon them : the greatest
exertions have been made, are still making. and the greatest
sacrifices of money expended, upon the endeavour to work
out satisfactorily the problem that the British people have
imposed upon them. The thoughts of men have been ex-
hausted to devise means, great and small, which might ac-
complish this object. Whilst, on the one hand, everything
that the ingenuity of mail has devised in the way of mechanical
skill to lessen the weight of manual labour, has been introduced
at the cost of a considerable outlay of capital; on the other,
encouragement has been held out to advance and reward in-
dustry and good conduct, the wants and wishes of the negroes
have been studied and advanced ; their comforts increased ;
new dwellings have been erected for them, and land attached ;
in many cases, it must be confessed, with a too unsparing
hand. Churches and schools have been provided and
maintained, and in every colony they are to be seen in daily
progress, by the united exertions of the colonists, and the
generous contributions of the benevolent of the Mother
Country. Religion and education constituted to my mind,
before I visited the colonies, the most reasonable foundation
on which to build a hope of the success of the system of free-
labour ; and if I have returned home with more doubts upon
the subject than I entertained at starting, it is only because
I have learned that these, like all other human means of in-
crease, require seed-time and harvest, and can no more be
forced into maturity than that which is more palpable to the
senses. It is, nevertheless, the groundwork on which our
best hopes of ultimate success must depend ; and the only
melancholy reflection is, that liberty should have been de-
creed by .a legislature before it had done one individaul act to
encourage and foster those principles which the parent ought
to have been careful to have established with a mother's
anxiety, before it exposed its progeny to all the dangers and
'seductions of an unfettered condition of society.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION.
In suddenly raising the negro population to be free agents
before they have been rendered sensible of all the responsi-
bilities
of such a condition, the British people have bound
themselves by every notion of humanity and justice to assist.
to render the change a beneficial one to this unfortunate
race. Let it not be imagined that this obligation has been
cancelled by the payment of twenty millions for the compen-
sation fund. This was a noble sacrifice, which will ever
redound to the honour of the British name ; but this sum
was paid •to the landowners, who are risking double that
amount in the success of the mighty experiment—for such it
yet must be—and a fearful experiment too. The planters
cannot be supposed to have the means of providing any thing
approaching to an adequate extent- of that religion and
education, upon which all our hopes of raising the liberated
sons of Africa to a state of social civilisation must mainly
depend. Upon the benevolent and affluent of our country-
men we, whose all is risked in the result, essentially depend
for the requisite aid. No channel for the exercise of this
liberality is at once so extensively useful, 'and so safe and
certain for advancing this result, as the venerable Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. I wish,
with all my heart, that my feeble powers were able to reach
the hearts of those who are blessed by Providence with the
ability to contribute to this good cause ; for I am quite con-
fident that the negro can be rendered worthy of a state of
freedom, and that he is as capable of civilisation, and even
of refinement, as his brother of the more temperate regions
of the earth. I hold it to be altogether a Colonial prejudice,
although I have heard it most confidently asserted by many
excellent and (in other respects) sensible people, that the
negro is by nature a debased creation, that nothing can im-
prove. Apart from the sin of supposing that God could
create a responsible creature incapable of rendering •a just
respimsibility, must own that I have been surprised at
many proofs of the highest intelligence, and of many native
good qualities, in this undervalued people. I cannot resist
again qu9ting the language of Bishop Porteus on this point.
He says it had been alleged in his day that the mind of the