16 TRINIDAD. 



sequent moral condition of the people to which may be added a 

 due regard to the influence of climate. But it seems that only 

 one object was to be achieved the emancipation of the slaves ; 

 the rest, it was taken for granted, would follow as a natural con- 

 sequence. The result has proved the fallacy of the deduction. 

 This, however, is a question which I shall examine in its proper 

 order. 



The above may be regarded as a general interpretation of the 

 many and serious difficulties the colonists have had to encounter. 

 But, in order to answer some of the accusations which have been 

 circulated against the West Indians by nearly all those who have 

 adverted to the subject, I must go into further details ; and as 

 those censures are reiterated in a condensed form, in the con- 

 clusion of Mr. Montgomery Martin's volume on the West Indies, 

 I shall examine his assertions in the following paragraphs : 



Mr. Martin says, " The treatment, which the apprentices had 

 received, caused a still greater alienation between the labourer 

 and his master than had previously existed, and deepened the 

 aversion to sugar cultivation, which, having long proved a grievous 

 and unrequited toil, performed under the stimulus of the lash by 

 the black man only, was naturally regarded as ignominious, and the 

 new made free man earnestly desired to be himself a proprietor 

 of the soil." 



The evil consequences of the system of apprenticeship are not 

 attributable, as here stated, to the " treatment which the ap- 

 prentices had received," but they were the results of the system 

 itself, precisely as the effect is the result of the cause which 

 produces it. The slaves were told they were free, but also that 

 they must continue to serve as apprentices for terms of four and 

 six years. This they could never understand, especially as such 

 apprenticeship was nothing else than slavery in disguise. What 

 was the consequence ? The proprietor was regarded as the only 

 obstacle to the freedom granted by the Queen, and became subject 

 to all kinds of annoyances on the part of his so-called apprentices; 

 and if, in exceptional cases, the labourer was unjustly treated, in 

 nearly all, the planter was ill-used : and yet, the former is, as the 

 pet child, invariably excused, whilst the latter is as indiscriminately 

 censured. Neither were malignants wanting, at the time, who 

 sought to impress on the minds of the apprentices the idea that 

 the planters were really the only obstacle to immediate freedom ; 

 this did indeed increase the alienation which already existed 

 between the labourer and his master, but not, as is asserted, 

 the treatment the former received, and which had been regulated 

 by law. True, the planter did not engage instructors for his 

 labourers, neither did he give them an opportunity of being 

 instructed : but who, in his position, would have done so ? 



" When these facts are taken into consideration," again says 



