Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/51

43 But what will you say to Sir James Carmichael Smyth? a gentleman of undoubted honesty, and not less unquestionable talents—a gentleman whose bias is in favour, and I will say excusably in favour, of the negroes upon every doubtful point. He exercises a most vigilant superintendence. He lives close to the negroes at George Town, and he invites and encourages them to resort to him with their complaints. And he it is who tells you, that the labourers of British Guiana are an orderly, a happy, an industrious, an improving population; he it is who says to you, "I challenge comparison with any county of Great Britain."

But I cannot refrain from mentioning to the House two circumstances that have very recently taken place upon estates within my own private knowledge; for it is no part of my policy to suppress what tends to exhibit the amiable qualities of the negro character, as it is, I grieve to say, on the other side to conceal whatever is for the credit of the planters. On one estate, (that of Vreedenhoop,) an inundation suddenly occurred, which threatened the most serious mischief. It was Sunday morning—there was no legal claim upon them—but the labourers turned out to a man to erect a dam, and prevented the mischief.

The other is really a touching incident. I hold in my hand the Guiana Chronicle of October 11th, 1837, containing an advertisement of subscrip-