JAMAICA.
3471
millions sterling, for the purchase of the liberty of the slaves in the West India Colonies, the Mauritius, and the Cape of Good Hope, in the years 1838, and 1840; and for the establishment, in the interim, of a modified and mitigated servitude, which should be an advantageous state of transition to unrestricted freedom. It remains therefore to enquire, how far the provisions of this costly measure have been carried out, and to compare the condition created in theory, by its stipulations, with the actual state of the slave population in Jamaica. The first clause of the Act, premising the justice and expediency of the abolition of slavery, and of compensation to slave masters, declares, that it is expedient to make provision for securing the industry and good conduct of the manumitted slaves for a limited period ; and that it is necessary to ai誰ord time for the adaption of the local colonial laws to a state of freedom. It therefore enacts, that all persons who, on the first of August 1834, shall have been duly registered as slaves, and shall appear on the registry, to be six years old or upwards, shall from that day become apprenticed laborers. We have already shewn, that the non-registered slaves are also detained in apprenticeship in direct violation of this enactment. The second clause enacts, that all persons, who would for the time being, have been entitled to the services of the slaves, if this Act had not been made, shall be entitled to their services as apprenticed laborers. No other services are thus transferred to the slave-masters, than what the colonial laws secured to them, under the previous system. By those laws, the mothers of six or more living children, were exempted from field labor, and provided with " an easy and comfortable maintenance;" but under the Apprenticeship, this