JAMAICA.
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one slaves, including fifty-six under ten years of age ; in 1832, three hundred and fifteen including eightythree under ten years.* The proprietor is accustomed to employ his own people and all others, who apply, to work in their own time, for wages. None who are willing to work are sent away. Even young children and infirm people are employed and remunerated in proportion to their ability. He is at present engaged in making extensive alterations in his house solely by free labor. Before the apprenticeship, as was observed to us, it was never contemplated to perform any work but by the labor of their own slaves. Now the negros are found to be glad to work for wages, and there is much less trouble and more satisfaction in employing them as free laborers. In the evening we had the opportunity of conversing with W I L L I A M H A M I L T O N , whose history has recently * Much vahiable information respecting his mode of manage m e n t is contained in the evidence given in December 18.33, by H. M. S C O T T to a "Committee of tho Assembly appointed to enquire into the moral and religious improvement of the slaves." H e observes " that his property is exclusively conducted by slaves. K e y s of stores containing large stocks of rum and sugar are at this moment com mitted to the custody of a servant liberated recently." A n d again, " A generally received opinion, that the culture of canes is neces sarily hostile to human life seems destitute of any solid foundation ; it is contingent not inherent when it becomes so. W h e r e in the circle of. the globe shall w e find an object of culture which contri butes so largely to the direct sustenance of the laborer, and at the same time almost entirely supports every animal employed in the cultivation of it ; or one that returns more to the soil in manure, while it supplies a redundance of fuel for the manufacture of sugar when it is not destroyed by ill-constructed machinery. Nothing then is wanting to make tho cane what a beneficent Creator de signed it to be—one of his chosen gifts to man —but the regulations of an enlightened Government, with some salutary check on t h e cupidity of the cultivator."