Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/52

44 raised within the colony in aid of those collected at home last year, for the relief of the distressed Highlanders. Among the subscriptions are sums from the apprenticed labourers of twenty-two estates; and I rejoice to say, that the largest amount is from the estate of Success, where it exceeds twelve pounds. It is affecting to see, not, I am happy to think, the poor, but the humble labourer of British Guiana, thus already mindful of his distant fellow-subjects. It shows the advancement of the negro population. But it also shows the friendly relations—the white persons on that estate are chiefly Scotchmen—subsisting between the different classes, and surely it speaks volumes against the proposition for a violent interference between them.

Sir, if there had been in Guiana a breach of contract by defective laws, the fault would have lain with the government; because I believe that the whole legislative power over that colony, except in the case of taxation alone, where it is controlled by a court called the Combined Court, is in the hands of the government at home.

But I will not leave even that supposition to stand. Mr. Jeremie, in the year 1836, examined with the eye of a lynx all the colonial abolition and supplemental laws. Every man who knows his eminent abilities can appreciate that examination. Mr. Jeremie told me, before my honourable friend Mr. Buxton and others, that he thought the legisla-