JAMAICA.
197
We were introduced afterwards to a number of the deacons and leaders of the church, who were assembled in a room adjoining the chapel. Some of them were free, but others were apprentices from the estates ; many of them, fully equal in intelligence and informa tion to English peasantry, of some of the agricultural districts. We enquired of them respecting the ap prenticeship. One of them stood up and said, that he was a constable, and that he found it very difticult to act according to his oath, as he was expected to do all for his master, and nothing for the people; whereas he was frequently obliged to remonstrate with his over seer about the oppressions which he practised ; that the apprentices now receive none of their former allow ances of salt-fish, and only half their former quantity of clothing. It was very hard for them to subsist as their grounds were often burned up by drought ; and that the overseer took their own time from them when ever he wanted it, and it was often a hard thing to get him to repay it. On our asking whether the people would be willing to work after eighteen hundred and forty, he said, "nothing was sweeter than for a man to labor for his own bread;" a sentiment to which all present responded. They told us that many had been flogged or sent to the treadmill, who had never been punished during slavery. Two of the individuals pre sent had been sent to the treadmill, and sustained severe injury from its effects. The offences were merely nominal, and we were assured their characters were without reproach. Another poor woman present, who was the mother of eight children, and in declining years and health, had been sent to the treadmill be cause she could not work in the first gang, after having lived during the last years of slavery a life of comparas 3