Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/48

40 inquiry into these cases, and let the House mark the result, resting however, of course, on private information. I received a letter this day from a proprietor of the first, Tuchen de Vrienden, forwarding to me a copy of one from the manager, in which he says,—

"I can verify on oath, that the allowance of food and clothing, prescribed by law, was regularly offered for the free children, and as regularly refused."

I apprehend he means prescribed by law for slave children. The reason of the refusal was this: the parents had been persuaded, that by accepting the allowances they would incur at least an implied obligation to bind the children as apprentices, to which they were averse.

The estate of Best, I understand, is in pecuniary difficulties, and on the verge of sequestration. The estate of Vreesenhoop is actually in sequestration, and of course the court would not allow, in the accounts, any except legal charges.

The honourable gentleman also referred to the amount of punishments; but what a strength of case have we here! When the noble lord introduced his resolutions for abolition in 1833, he referred to the case of British Guiana, to show, a register of punishments being there regularly kept, what was the amount of corporal suffering inflicted under slavery. Two hundred thousand lashes was the number which he then reported. And how stands that subject now? Why, Sir, the use of the