Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/53

45 of British Guiana, with few and immaterial exceptions, was even then entitled to be termed adequate and satisfactory.

Now, Sir, you have heard of the authority of Mr. Buxton, and of the committee of 1836, on the abolition of the apprenticeship. But observe also, in particular, that of Sir James Carmichael Smyth. He declared, as he has been cited by the noble lord, (Lord John Russell,) on the 3rd of February last,—

"I consider the continuance of the present system until the 1st of August, 1840, as identified with the future welfare of this magnificent province." But add to this, that when first he heard of the agitation at home, so early as in a despatch of the 19th March, 1837, he wrote to my Lord Glenelg as follows:—

"I assure your lordship that I should much regret and lament the doing away of the apprenticeship. I deprecate any sudden change or the abandonment of a system which, in British Guiana at any rate, so completely answers. Neither the planters nor the labourers are prepared for any immediate alteration. Of other colonies I presume not to speak nor to offer any opinion; but in British Guiana, not only the letter but the spirit of the act of parliament abolishing slavery and introducing apprentice labour have been so strictly enforced, that no act of tyranny, of cruelty, or of oppression, can take place without the speedy detection, exposure, and punishment of the person so offending."