Meanwhile, the Abolitionists, taking advantage of the liberal tendencies of the times, gathered strength by agitating the country through numerous publications and addresses, from some of the most able pens and eloquent tongues in the kingdom.

In 1831-2, an outbreak in Jamaica inflamed the already excited mind of England to an unusual pitch. An attempt to deprive some of the negroes of their wonted Christmas holidays, conspired with a report that Parliament had abolished slavery, to provoke a revolt. The masters fled, the troops interfered and slaughtered a large number of the insurgents, leaving the courts to put to death a few hundred in a more leisurely way. Not content with this, the planters glutted their vengeance by pulling down several chapels of the Baptist and Independent missionaries-forbidding meetings for religious worship in which slaves participated-driving some of the ministers to the mountains, and hunting them like beasts of prey-throwing others into prison-whilst a more fortunate few escaped to England. Among the latter was the Rev. William Knibb, a Baptist preacher of heroic courage, commanding person and vigorous eloquence. Arriving in the mother country in June, 1832, he perambulated the island, and in conjunction with the more learned and brilliant George Thompson, now member of Parliament, who was then employed as an Anti-Slavery lecturer, stirred the national heart to its core.

The

Parliament was not idle. In May, of this year, the West Indian interest in the House of Lords procured the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the state of the islands. It was mainly composed of opponents of Abolition. friends of liberty in the Commons, alarmed at this hostile proceeding, obtained, through their leader, Mr. T Fowell Buxton, a committee to consider the expediency of abolishing slavery in the islands. Mr. Buxton was chairman of the committee.

These two committees were in session when the exiled

Both

The Ministry

Jamaica missionaries arrived. They were examined as witnesses, with some sixty others, representing both sides of the question the inquiry extending through nearly three months. The result was, an overwhelming case against slavery. parties now girded themselves for the contest. of Earl Grey had recently carried the Reform bill. It was a favorable moment for the friends of freedom to strike. Early in the session of 1833, Mr. Buxton was about to bring forward a motion for the immediate abolition of slavery, when Mr. Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, superseded him, by pledging ministers to introduce a measure, without delay, which "should be safe and satisfactory to all parties."

Mr. Stanley brought out the Government plan of abolition, on the 14th of May, 1833. Good, genial, and unsuspecting Mr. Buxton now wished he had kept the work in his own hands. Stanley's bill bore the stereotyped ministerial stamp. It was a compromise between what justice demanded and what oppression would grant. It immediately emancipated all slaves under six years of age; and subjected house servants to an apprenticeship of four years, and agricultural servants of six years, to their former masters; and gave to the latter a compensation of £20,000,000. At the end of the apprenticeship, the negroes were to be completely free.

Leading Abolitionists denounced the scheme, compelled ministers to reduce the period of apprenticeship from twelve (as first proposed) to four and six years, protested against compensation; but, fearful of losing the boon, the majority finally yielded their opposition. In Parliament, the measure was discussed to its dregs; the friends of immediate Abolition striving to remedy its defects-the West India interest contesting every clause and comma with heroic pertinacity. After vast rhetorical displays on all sides, with much patience and philanthropy on one, and a good deal of bad temper and bad ethics, mingled with prophecies of bankruptcy and bloodshed on the other, the bill became a law on the 28th day of August,

1833. Mr. O'Connell voted against it, on the two grounds, that it did not give immediate freedom to the slaves, whilst it gave compensation to the masters.

In its actual workings, the apprenticeship realized most of the objections made to it by the Abolitionists, and few of the horrible forebodings of their opponents. The instant transition of 800,000 slaves into quasi freemen was not attended by any disorder whatever. And during the four years which the ill-contrived scheme lasted, not a drop of blood was shed; crimes of all grades diminished; vagrancy seldom showed its head; property was respected; the adults banished many of those domestic vices incident to a state of slavery; the children filled the schools; and this class of West India society rose in the scale of civilization and morals. And even after the forts were dismantled, and the troops sent away to prevent an insurrection among the whites of Canada, the Anglo-Saxons in the Caribbean Isles slept on quiet pillows.

But, though a heaven-wide remove from slavery, the apprenticeship was not a paradise to the parties. The dissonance was inherent in the nature of the plan. Looking to harmoni

ous results, it gave the planters too much power, or too little; the negroes too much liberty, or too little. The consequence was, interminable disputes between masters and apprentices; between planters and special justices; between the Home Government and the Colonial authorities. The majority of the justices, who had the chief agency in executing the Abolition act, endeavored to do it in its humane spirit. But too many of them could not withstand the seductive wit and wine of a class, whose chivalry and hospitality are proverbial wherever unpaid labor has shed its liberalizing influences.

Antigua and the Bermudas discarded the apprenticeship, and adopted complete abolition, the Act giving to the Colonies the alternative. Experience justified the wisdom of their choice. They reaped all the good fruits of the apprenticeship, and none of the bad. Messrs. Thome and Kimball,

of this country, visited Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, in 1837. From their admirable "Six Months Tour," I quote the following description of the "immediate" conversion to men, of 30,000 slaves of Antigua, on the 1st of August, 1834 :

** * *

"For some time previous to the 1st of August, forebodings of disaster lowered over the island. The day was fixed! Thirty thousand degraded human beings were to be brought forth from the dungeon of slavery, and turned loose on the community,' and this was to be done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!' Gloomy apprehensions were entertained by many of the planters. Some timorous families did not go to bed on the night of the 31st of July; fear drove sleep from their eyes, and they awaited with fluttering pulse the hour of midnight, fearing lest the same bell which sounded the jubilee of the slaves might toll the death-knell of the masters. Several American vessels which had lain for weeks in the harbor weighed anchor on the 31st of July, and made their escape, through actual fear that the island would be destroyed on the following day. The Wesleyans kept 'watch night' in all their chapels on the night of the 31st. At St. John's, the spacious building was filled with the candidates for liberty. All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, and, as they united in prayer, the voice of the leader was drowned in universal acclamations of thanksgiving, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and glory to God, who had come down for their deliverance. In such exercises the evening was spent until the hour of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed that, when the clock on the cathedral should begin to strike, the whole congregation should fall upon their knees, and receive the boon of freedom in silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first note, the immense assembly fell prostrate on their knees. All was silence, save the quivering half-stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the clock fell upon the multitude; peal on peal, peal on peal, rolled over the prostrate throng, in tones of angels' voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary heart-strings. Scarce had the clock sounded its last note, when the lightning flashed vividly around, and a loud peal of thunder roared along the sky-God's pillar of fire and trump of jubilee! A moment

of profoundest silence passed-then came the burst-they broke forth in prayer; they shouted, they sung, 'Glory,' ‘alleluia ;' they clapped their hands, leaped up, fell down, clasped each other in their free arms, cried, laughed, went to and fro, tossing upward their unfettered hands; but high above the whole there was a mighty sound, which ever and anon swelled up; it was the utterings in broken negro dialect of gratitude to God."

The experiment of immediate abolition in Antigua and the Bermudas, and of the apprenticeship in the other Colonies, has established the following facts: That, while melioration is a great improvement on chattel slavery, yet immediate and complete emancipation is far preferable: That either change is safe to the person and property of the master: That, for either, it is rather the master than the slave who needs preparation.

Considerations of principle, uniting with a mass of facts showing the superiority of immediate emancipation over the apprenticeship, induced the Abolitionists of England, in 1836–7, to take a final stand for the complete disenthralment of the negro. A numerous Convention of delegates met in London, in November, 1837; resolved that the apprenticeship should cease on or before the first of August, 1838; memorialized the Government against its continuance; and, through a deputation, waited on the Colonial Secretary, to enforce their appeal. They were coldly, not to say contemptuously, treated by Lord Glenelg. After selecting a Central Committee, to watch the Ministry and Parliament, the delegates went home to agitate the country. Thompson, Wardlaw, Smeal, and their coadjutors, aroused Scotland; whilst Sturge, Buxton, Scoble, and their friends, shook England. In the course of the fall and winter, petitions poured into Parliament in unprecedented numbers, whilst seven hundred thousand women presented their prayer to the Queen in behalf of her oppressed female subjects in the Western isles.

Parliament began to move. On the 20th of February, 1838, Lord Brougham, in presenting a petition from Glasgow