250
JAMAICA.
mediate state of apprenticeship decided upon by the Imperial Parliament, and have viewed with intense interest the working of that system during the two j years and a-half that have elapsed. We feel ourselves ; called upon to declare to you our firm conviction that i the apprentices have conducted themselves in the most j tranquil and peaceable manner, and have shewn every ; disposition to be industrious where encouragement has \ been afforded them by fair and equitable remuneration, j and where they have not been provoked by vexatious < annoyances. ĂŽ " We cannot refrain from expressing our deliberate J opinion of the total unfitness of the apprenticeship system as an act of preparation for freedom ; and that \ it is to the unparalleled patience of the apprentices, ; and not to its tolerant spirit, that the present peaceful 1 and prosperous state of the island is attributable. To I you we unhesitatingly declare our belief, that this mockery of freedom is worthless as a preparation for that state to which it can have no possible affinity; 1 that while it represses the energy of the negro, it has \ rendered him distrustful of the British public, by whom j he considers himself to have been cheated by a name ; j that it has entailed, and is still entailing, excessive i suffering, especially on the mother and her helpless \ and unavoidably neglected offspring, and that to secure its termination, no effort can be considered too great. We do, therefore, most earnestly entreat you on your^ return to your native land, to exert your influence to j effect the total abandonment of this system in 1838 ; j but if every effort fail in procuring the abolition of the \ term of apprenticeship, to the predial apprentices, that | those advantages may at least be secured to them, to j which they are entitled by the provisions, imperfect as | they are, of the Act for the Abolition of Slavery.