Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/17

9 The third: a grant of fifteen millions, a loan of ten millions, and a seventwelve [sic] years' apprenticeship.

The West Indians preferred the first; but any gentleman will perceive, from equating these three alternatives, that in the estimation of the government, the extra five years of apprenticeship were of the value of five millions sterling, paid seven years in advance; and I advert to this for the purpose of showing, first, how specifically the apprenticeship bore a computed value as part and parcel of the compensation; and, secondly, that when Parliament indicated, as was believed by the noble lord, a disposition to refuse its assent to these terms, he, acting as he did with the strictest honour, felt himself bound to them, until released by the agreement of the West Indian proprietors, to accept a compensation, less, as I have shown, by five millions at seven years' advance, than that which the administration had deemed to be an equitable amount,

I will next show that the remaining term of this apprenticeship continues to bear a marketable value, by a reference to cases in my possession.

I take first the case of forty-eight negroes, whose services were purchased in December last by Mr. Spencer Mackay, a planter of Demerara, at 92l. sterling per head, for the residue of their time, amounting to two years and seven months. Next, that of about one hundred negroes, whose time was purchased at the same period by the government of