SPEECH 
 
 r/.-.i. 
 
 OF 
 
 REV. HENRY B_LEBY, 
 
 MISSIONARY FROM BARBADOES, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 BRITISH W. 1. COLONIES, 
 
 Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachu¬ 
 setts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island 
 Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858. 
 
 PHONOGEAPHIC REPORT' BT J. M. W. YERRINTON. 
 
 - <: 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 R. F. WALLCUT, 21 CORNHILL. 
 
 1 8 5 8 . 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 I am happy, Mr. President, that you have placed 
 me before this assembly, not as one from whom a 
 speech may be expected, but in the capacity of a wit¬ 
 ness ; and therefore I can tell a plain, straight-for¬ 
 ward tale, without being at all cast down by the con¬ 
 sciousness that I cannot make any pretension to those 
 gifts of oratory, which I have observed our friends 
 have been accustomed to meet with in connection with 
 those who have taken a leading part on such occasions 
 as this. 
 
 I am, perhaps, Mr. Chairman, the only person pres¬ 
 ent who was an ej'-e-witness of that event which you 
 have met together this day to celebrate. You will see 
 that I am not a very old man, sir; the snows of age 
 have not entirely covered my head; but I am old 
 enough to have been present during that insurrection 
 to which you have referred, and which was one of the 
 principal events which hastened on the crisis of the 
 movement for West India Emancipation, and con¬ 
 strained the British government to ‘ let the oppressed 
 go free.’ It had been customary with the pro-slavery 
 press of Great Britain,—and a very large portion of 
 that press was, up to a late hour, under the influence 
 of the West India body, and of those interested in 
 
4 
 
 the maintenance of slavery,—it had been customary 
 for that press, as it is now of the pro-slavery press of 
 this country, to endeavor to mislead the masses by 
 asserting that the slaves were better olf than they 
 would be in freedom, that they were perfectly con¬ 
 tent with their lot, that they hugged their chains, and 
 that it was, in brief, a condition very little short of 
 the happiness of Paradise. You may imagine, then, 
 what sort of feeling would be excited in Great Brit¬ 
 ain, among its churches and the people generally, 
 when the startling intelligence reached them, in the 
 beginning of 1832, that fifty thousand slaves in the 
 island of Jamaica had made an effort for liberty, had 
 resolved to strike a blow for freedom, and had stood 
 up in opposition to their masters, and to the law which 
 held them in bondage, and claimed their freedom. 
 Sir, the illusion was at once dispelled, and it was seen 
 and felt, throughout the length and breadth of Great 
 Britain, that the public mind had been imposed upon, 
 and that there existed in the West Indies, amongst 
 the slaves, an intense desire, nay, more than that, a 
 determination to be free. Sir, I happened to be sta¬ 
 tioned in the island of Jamaica, and in that part of it 
 which was the scene of this insurrection. I knew the 
 person with whom the insurrection originated very 
 well; I marked its progress ; 1 was an eye-witness to 
 the cruelties and slaughter by which it was sup¬ 
 pressed ; and I saw it brought to a termination. The 
 man with whom the insurrection originated,—Samu¬ 
 el Sharp,—was a slave, and a member of the Baptist 
 church in Montego Bay. Although it may seem 
 strange to many', Sam Sharp was a very handsome 
 negro, a perfect model man; and, more than that, he 
 
5 
 
 had learned to read. He was born in slavery, but he 
 had never felt any thing of the bitterness of slavery. 
 He was born in a family that treated him indulgent¬ 
 ly ; he was a pet, and was brought up as the play¬ 
 mate of the juvenile members of the family, and had 
 opportunities of learning to read and for mental cul¬ 
 tivation, to which very few of his fellow-slaves had 
 access; and Sharp, above all this, was possessed of 
 a mind worthy of any man, and of oratorical powers 
 of no common order. I have been astonished, when 
 I have heard that man address a large assembly, as I 
 did several times w’hile he was in jail, to see the pow¬ 
 er W’ith which he swayed the feelings, the hearts, and 
 the minds of his auditory. He w'as a man of no 
 common stamp, though a black man, and born in sla¬ 
 very. 
 
 Well, sir. Sharp determined to free himself and 
 his fellow-slaves. I do not know whether he was 
 himself deceived, or whether he knowingly deceived 
 his fellow-conspirators, but he persuaded a large 
 number of them to believe that the British govern¬ 
 ment had made them free, and that their owners 
 W’ere keeping them in slavery in opposition to the 
 w’ishes of the authorities in England. It so happen¬ 
 ed, sir, that, just at that time, the planters themselves 
 were pursuing a course which favored Sharp’s pro¬ 
 ceedings directly. They were holding meetings 
 through the length and breadth of the island, pro¬ 
 testing against the interference of the home govern¬ 
 ment with their property, passing very inflammatory 
 resolutions, and threatening that they would transfer 
 their allegiance to the United States, in order that 
 they might perpetuate their interest in their slaves. 
 
6 
 
 Sharp dexterously took advantage of these meetings, 
 and pointed out to the slaves, that if it -were not true 
 that the British government were willing to make 
 them free, there would be no necessity for such meet¬ 
 ings and such publications as these. The consequence 
 was, that about fifty thousand of these people, at the 
 Christmas holidays, were in insurrection, and claimed 
 their rights as British subjects, and as free men, re¬ 
 fusing to go to work on any terms, except on the pay¬ 
 ment of their proper wages as free workmen. The 
 insurrection was soon put down, as you may imag¬ 
 ine. Sharp really believed that the British soldiers 
 would not act in opposition to the slaves, in claiming 
 their freedom ; he soon found his mistake, however. 
 A large body of military was ordered to that part of 
 the island. The commander-in-chief was a man who 
 felt as a man ought to feel under such circumstances, 
 and sought to do every thing he could to put an end 
 to the insurrection by lenient measures, and issued a 
 proclamation, promising that all who would return to 
 their duty within a limited period should be pardon - 
 ed,—that no notice should betaken of what they had 
 done, unless they had been guilty of incendiarism, 
 or had committed personal violence upon the oppo¬ 
 site party. Parties were sent out with the proclama¬ 
 tion, and many of the slaves, finding that their at • 
 tempt to recover their freedom in this way would be 
 vain, came in, and resumed their labors upon the es¬ 
 tates. The insurrection would soon have been put 
 down, and very little loss of life would have ensued, 
 had not the militia of the island, consisting of the 
 planters, who had manifested the greatest cow¬ 
 ardice when the insurrection broke out, now recov- 
 
7 
 
 ered their bravery, and subjected those who had 
 taken part in it to every indignity and outrage. I 
 have seen men and <vomen who came in under the 
 proclamation, and the promise it contained from the 
 commander-in-chief, taken out of the field, with their 
 hoes in their hands, tied, and shot dead. I used 
 to see the gallows filled with insurgents from 
 morning to night. I remember, on one occasion, my 
 attention was directed to an execution which was 
 about to take place—that of one of the principal 
 leaders in the insurrection. A court-martial was 
 sitting in Montego Bay, and about twenty or thir¬ 
 ty yards off, a gallows had been erected, on which five 
 or six persons could be executed at once. Five men 
 were hanging on it, and five more were beneath it, 
 and it was rumored that Capt. Dehany, a man who 
 had taken a leading part in the insurrection, was to 
 be executed in the next lot. The executioner, who 
 w'as a brutal black man, and one who had escaped the 
 gallows on condition that he should perform these hor¬ 
 rible duties, was leaning against one of the posts of 
 the gallows, eating his breakfast,—a piece of salt fish 
 in one hand, and a piece of plantain in the other. 
 He was told his victims were ready. (They only al¬ 
 lowed the doomed ones half an hour after their con¬ 
 viction to prepare for death.) Bacchus,—that was the 
 name of the executioner,—put down his food upon a 
 projection of the gallows, walked up the ladder, and 
 with the knife with which he had been eating his 
 breakfast, severed the cords on which the victims on 
 the gallows were hanging, and down they fell, one after 
 another, upon the heap of dead below. Then he brought 
 out Dehany and his fellows. I knew him at once, 
 
8 
 
 though I had never seen him before, by the demeanor 
 of the man,—a fine, broad-chested, model man,—a 
 yellow-skinned negro, as they called him there; 
 but there rested upon his countenance an angry 
 frown. The man walked out to meet his doom as if 
 he were walking at the head of a triumphal proces¬ 
 sion. A gentleman stepped up to him and said, ‘ De- 
 hany, what is troubling you at a time like this ? ’ 
 •Mr. Manderson,’ said he, ‘they want me to go be¬ 
 fore God with a lie in my mouth. They want me to 
 say that the missionaries put us up to it. They know 
 it is a lie.’ ‘ Well, never mind,’ said the gentleman ; 
 
 ‘ don’t let that trouble you now.’ The frown soon 
 passed off his face, and they were marched up the 
 platform and tied up ; signal was given, and the 
 rope was cut. I looked, and only four of them hung 
 upon the gallows, and Dehany was not among them. 
 The rope had broken, and he had fallen to the ground. 
 They picked him up, half-strangled, and in a state of 
 unconsciousness for a moment or two. I went up, in 
 the midst of the crowd, to witness his demeanor. 
 Still, sir, with all these horrors about him, the man 
 was undaunted. I could hear the whisper of prayer 
 upon his lips; there was nothing about him of bra¬ 
 vado, but every thing that indicated the manly cour¬ 
 age of one who is conscious he is dying in an hon¬ 
 orable cause. (Applause.) 
 
 So it was with Samuel Sharp. After the insurrec¬ 
 tion was put down. Sharp was taken, and he was the 
 last man put to death in consequence of that insur¬ 
 rection. About two thousand were slain; many of 
 them, •of course, in encounters with the military, but 
 most of them were either shot or hanged in cold blood. 
 
9 
 
 I have myself seen not less than nineteen of these 
 poor creatures led out in one batch, to be lianged up 
 like dogs. I have known sixty to be led out from the 
 same jail, in the course of three days, and put to death. 
 On one occasion, I saw a poor fej^-ow brought into 
 town, his hands tied behind him; a court martial was 
 immediately summoned, and with scarcely a show of 
 evidence that the man had done any thing in connec¬ 
 tion with the insurrection,—indeed, there was nothing 
 found, except that he was in the midst of a crowd 
 looking on whilst a building was burning which had 
 been set on fire by the insurrectionists,—he was con¬ 
 victed, and led out to be shot. They were in such a 
 hurry, that they did not even take the trouble to pass 
 sentence upon him ; and when within an hour and a 
 half from the time he w^as brought into the town, he 
 stood under the gallows, I heard him inquire, ‘ What 
 are you going to do with me ? ’ They had not even 
 had the humanity to tell him he was going to die. 
 The officer stepped up to him, took up his jacket, 
 which had been torn off when he was brought to the 
 spot, threw it over his face, and said, ‘ You will 
 find out in a moment.’ He stepped back, the word 
 w'as given, and the man lay there, a bullet through 
 his brain, and another through his heart. I heard 
 one man say to the crowd of slaves standing round,— 
 pointing to the hole in the slave’s head,—^‘Y'ou want 
 your freedom, do you ? Put your finger there ! That 
 is the kind of freedom we will give you, you black 
 devils ! ’ This I heard with my own ears. 
 
 I saw hundreds thus slaughtered in cold blood. 
 Sharp was the last brought out to be put to 
 death; and his end was worthy of his character. 
 
10 
 
 I had frequent opportunities to converse with him 
 W'hile he was in jail. When I saw so many put to 
 death, I wrote a communication for one of the island 
 newspapers, wuth the intention of directing the Gov¬ 
 ernor’s attention' to the wholesale slaughter that was 
 going on. It had the effect I intended. The Govern¬ 
 or read it, and the next post brought down an order 
 to the authorities, civil and military, that no fur¬ 
 ther executions should take place for crimes com¬ 
 mitted during the insurrection, without his own 
 warrant. Thus it happened that Samuel Sharp was 
 detained in prison several w’eeks after he had been 
 tried, and sentence of death pronounced upon him, 
 and I had frequent opportunities of conversing with 
 him. He was a man who had read the New Testa¬ 
 ment, and read the newspapers, and was in all re¬ 
 spects a superior man. I asked him what it was that 
 induced him to take part in this movement, since he 
 had never suffered, as many had, under the lash. 
 ‘ Sir,’ said he, ‘ in reading my Bible, I found the 
 white man had no more right to make a slave of me 
 than I had to make a slave of the white man—(ap¬ 
 plause") ; and I would rather go out, and die on that 
 gallows, than live a slave.’ (Loud applause.) The 
 young ladies of the family to which he belonged 
 made him a very handsome suit of white clothes, 
 and I saw him march to his death. I heard the 
 remarks which he made when he stood on the 
 platform under the gallows ; and, sir, I could not but 
 drop a tear to see a man like that put to death, whose 
 only crime was, that he made an effort to recover that 
 liberty which is the right of every human being, and 
 of which he, in common with his brethren, had been 
 wrongfully and wickedly deprived. 
 
11 
 
 The insurrection was put down, and the inten¬ 
 tion which Sharp entertained in connection with 
 it was frustrated. His design was not to do violence 
 to any person or property, but simply to act upon 
 the principle of passive resistance. He argued in this 
 way :—‘ They will put to death some of us, if we 
 sit down and refuse to work after Christmas, and 
 we must be content to die for the benefit of the rest. 
 I, for one, am ready to die, in order that the rest may 
 be free. (Applause.) They may put some of us 
 to death, but they cannot hang and shoot us all, 
 and if we are faithful one to another, we must obtain 
 our freedom.’ (Renewed applause.) 
 
 Samuel Sharp’s plan was defeated, in this way :— 
 He had not calculated sufl^iciently upon the impulsive 
 character of the men he undertook to lead in this 
 movement,—upon their not being accustomed to ex¬ 
 ercise self-restraint; consequently, when some of 
 them broke into the store-houses of the estates, and 
 became intoxicated, and then set tire to the buildings, 
 that was regarded as a signal all over the coun¬ 
 try, and the works and mills w’ere destroyed on two 
 hundred or three hundred estfites. Sharp said, ‘When 
 this occurred, I saw the scheme was defeated. I 
 knew that the whites would slaughter us without 
 mercy, and our freedom be a long while put off.’ 
 
 But, sir, although the immediate design of Sharp 
 was not accomplished, yet it was ultimately. This 
 very insurrection was one of the events which hast¬ 
 ened the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. I 
 dare say my friend Mr. Garrison is sufficiently ac¬ 
 quainted with the history of those times to remember 
 that in the Committee appointed by the House of 
 
12 
 
 Lords to investigate the whole question of slavery, 
 and also that in the Committee appointed by the 
 House of Commons, the decision on the question of 
 the immediate abolition of slavery turned upon this 
 point,—‘ Will it be safe to the planters that sla¬ 
 very be continued f ’ Two of my brother missiona¬ 
 ries, who went home for the express purpose of ap¬ 
 pearing before these Committees, gave it as their 
 opinion that it would not be safe; that these insur¬ 
 rectionary attempts would be repeated, and that the 
 probability was, that if the British government did 
 not bring slavery in the colonies to a peaceful termina¬ 
 tion, it would soon be quenched in blood, and the 
 slaves would emancipate themselves. That convic¬ 
 tion was forced upon the Committees of both Houses 
 of Parliament; they reported accordingly, and the 
 doom of slavery was sealed. 
 
 Sir, it was my privilege to be in Jamaica when 
 slavery came to an end, and I rejoiced the more 
 to be a witiiess of its extinction, because I had 
 suffered in common with my brethren, in connection 
 with it. We were sent out as the instructors of the 
 slaves and free colored people. We built churches, 
 assisted by the liberality of the British people, all over 
 the island, wherever we could, and we were sustained 
 by funds contributed by British benevolence, as in¬ 
 structors of the negroes. Well, sir, we were denounc¬ 
 ed by the planters, from the beginning of our efforts, 
 as spies of the Anti-Slavery Society. They had saga¬ 
 city enough to discover, at a very early period of our 
 labors, that slavery and Christianity could not long 
 co-exist ; that they were essentially antagonistic, and 
 that the one must ultimately destroy the other. De- 
 
13 
 
 termined to pei’petuate slavery, they resolved to do all 
 thej' could to get rid of Christianity, and keep their 
 people in heathen darkness; and, consequently, 
 throughout our history we were subjected to the most 
 bitter persecution ; and, sir, just after the insurrection 
 to which I have referred, the whole white people of 
 the island of Jamaica banded themselves together in 
 an association which they called ‘ The Colonial 
 Union,’ the avowed object of which was to drive every 
 instructor of the negroes from the island. Eighteen 
 of our churches were levelled with the ground. They 
 dragged the missionaries to prison, got false witnesses 
 to swear against them, treated them with brutal vio¬ 
 lence, and did every thing they could to put an end 
 to our labors. But, as they were determined to drive 
 us away, we were determined to remain, and remain 
 we did. (Loud applause.) Though our churches lay 
 in ruins, and we could not gather a congregation, 
 though our societies were scattered, and we were ex¬ 
 posed to all the indignities which the anti-slavery 
 advocates have to suffer now in the South, we stood 
 our ground, and by and by we saw the result of all 
 these things. We were much discouraged when 
 these events took place. When we saw these violent 
 men rampant and triumphant, w'hen we saw our 
 churches in ruins, and our congregations scattered 
 hither and thither, and our mouths closed for nearly 
 two years together, we were greatly discouraged, and 
 we wondered what Divine Providence was working 
 out through all these things. By and by we began 
 to see what it was. By these means it was that that 
 storm of indignation was raised among the British 
 people, that led to the abolition of slavery. They saw 
 
14 
 
 there was no chance even of evangelizing the negroes 
 while slavery existed, and they rose in their might, 
 and the British Government was obliged to yield; 
 and slavery, with all its abominations, its chains and 
 whips, its tortures and dungeons, was swept away, to 
 be known no more in those colonies for ever. ^Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 Sir, I was there when slavery was abolished. I 
 saw the monster die. This day, tw'enty-four years 
 ago, I stood up late at night, in one of the churches 
 under my charge,—a very large church,—and the 
 aisles were crowded, and the gallery stairs, and the 
 communion place, and the pulpit stairs, w'ere all 
 crowded, and there were thousands of people round 
 the building, at every open door and window, looking 
 in. This was at ten o’clock at night, on the 31st of 
 July. We thought that it was right and proper that 
 our Christian people should receive their freedom as 
 a boon from God, and in the house of prayer, and 
 we gathered them together in the church for a 
 midnight service. It was my privilege to stand 
 up in that congregation, and ‘ proclaim liberty to 
 the captive, and the opening of the prison doors 
 to them that were bound.’ (Applause.) Sir, our 
 mouths had been closed about slavery up to that 
 time. We could not quote, without endangering our 
 lives, a passage that had reference even to spiritual 
 emancipation. These planters found treason in the 
 Bible and sedition in the spiritual hymns of Watts 
 and Wesley, and we were obliged to be careful how 
 we used them, and in what connection we used the 
 word liberty ; because they had a law,—the law of 
 ‘ constructive treason,’ it was called,—that doomed any 
 
15 
 
 man to death who made use of language tending to 
 excite a desire for liberty among the slaves. You may 
 imagine, then, with what feelings I s.aw myself eman¬ 
 cipated from this thraldom, and free to proclaim lib¬ 
 erty to the captive, and the opening of prison-doors 
 to them that were bound.’ (Applause.) I took for 
 my text that night Leviticus 25 : 10. lly and 
 by, the midnight hour approached. When it was 
 within two or three minutes of the first of August,— 
 the day appointed for the liberation of the slaves,—I 
 requested all the people to kneel down, as befitting the 
 solemnity of the hour, and engage in silent prayer to 
 God. They did so ; and, sir, I looked down upon 
 them—the silence onh'^ broken by the sobs of emotion 
 which it was impossible to repress. By and by the 
 clock began to strike;—it was the knell of Slavery ! 
 It was the stroke which proclaimed liberty to eight 
 hundred thousand human beings ! And, sir, what a 
 burst of joy rolled over that mass of people when the 
 clock struck, and they felt they were slaves no longer ! 
 They remained on their knees a moment, and then I 
 told them to rise. They did so ; .and, sir, it was really 
 affecting to see, in one corner, a mother, with her lit¬ 
 tle one, whom she had brought with her, because 
 there was no one at home to take care of it, clasp her 
 baby to her bosom ; and there was an old white head¬ 
 ed man, embracing a daughter; and here, again, 
 would be a husband congratulating his wife in a simi¬ 
 lar way ; and something like confusion was apparent 
 all over the building. However, we made allowance 
 for these seeming improprieties, because of the occa¬ 
 sion, and by and by all was still again, and then, sir, 
 I gave out a hymn. I am glad to sa}' I have it here. 
 
16 
 
 I cannot tell you, so -well as you may imagine, the 
 feelings with which these people, just emerging into 
 freedom, shouted,—for they literally shouted ,—the 
 hymn which I now read to you :— 
 
 ‘ Send the glad tidings o’er the sea,— 
 llis chains are broke, the slave is free; 
 Britannia's justice, wealth, and might 
 Have gained the negro’s long-lost right! 
 
 His chains are broke, the slave is free,;— 
 
 This is the Negro’s jubilee ! 
 
 ‘ Hail! blessed and auspicious day ! 
 
 Dear is thy first bright dawning ray. 
 
 Which comes, an angel from above, 
 
 Herald of freedom, joy and love: 
 
 • Thy breezes whisper, ‘ Slave, be free ! ’— 
 
 Now is the Negro’s jubilee ! 
 
 ‘ O Thou, W'hose favor long was sought. 
 
 What full deliverance hast thou wrought! 
 The captive’s groan has pierced thine ear. 
 And thou hast wiped the falling tear. 
 
 The curse is past, the slave is free! 
 
 This is the Negro’s jubilee ! 
 
 ‘ Our prayers shall now with praise combine. 
 For freedom poured on every clime; 
 
 For holy freedom, gracious Lord, 
 
 To join a world in sweet accord : 
 
 Then, freed from sin, from error free. 
 
 We ’ll keep a brighter jubilee ! ’ 
 
 I hope the time will soon come, Mr. Chairman, 
 when thousands of Christian ministers, with their 
 congregations, throughout the length and breadth of 
 the United States, will be able to sing that Jubilee 
 Hymn I (Loud applause.) 
 
 But, sir, I find that I am trespassing upon the time 
 and patience of the audience, [Cries of ‘ No, no,’ and 
 
17 
 
 ‘ Go on,’] and therefore I will hasten to another sub¬ 
 ject, which I have found, since I have been in New 
 England, is regarded by many persons as of great im¬ 
 portance, namely. The Working of Emancipation in 
 the British Colonies. 
 
 Sir, I have been told, since I have been here, that 
 emancipation, it is understood, has been a failure. 
 I am prepared to give this statement an unqualified 
 contradiction. There is no sense whatever in which 
 the emancipation of the shaves of the British colonies 
 has proved a failure. Sir, emancipation has not 
 proved a failure in this sense,—the people are all 
 free. It has not failed to break their chains and set 
 them free. In that it is no failure, but a blessed 
 reality. Then, sir, I am told that the people are worse 
 off in freedom than they were in slavery, and in that 
 sense emancipation has proved a failure. But, sir, it 
 is not true ; and I wonder, I have often wondered, 
 how any man with common sense could for a moment 
 entertain such an opinion. Sir, the people now, 
 throughout the British colonies, have their own time 
 at their disposal—their whole time. This was not 
 the case in the days of slavery. The only time they 
 had at their disposal then was one day in two weeks, 
 to cultivate their provision grounds and procure the 
 necessaries of life, and the Sabbath to go to market, 
 and for religious worship, if they chose. That was all 
 the time the people in Jamaica had at their own dispo¬ 
 sal under slavery. Their masters did not give them 
 food or wages, but they gave them a piece of land,— 
 it might be two or three acres, if they could cultivate 
 them,—sometimes four or five, even ten or fifteen 
 miles away from the estate on which they resided; 
 
18 
 
 and they gave them one day in two weeks to raise 
 provisions upon this piece of land,—and that was all, 
 except a little salt fish now and then, with which to 
 season their provisions. Now, sir, the people have 
 all their time; they can spend it to the best advan¬ 
 tage, according to their own judgment, and according 
 to their views of their own interest. Then, sir, the 
 people now have the Sabbath. Formerly, it was im¬ 
 possible for them to keep holy the Sabbath day; 
 they had to go to market on that day; and when 
 their market was over, they would bring their bas¬ 
 kets and trays to the place of worship, and deposit 
 them there, — having taken some opportunity to 
 change their apparel,—while they went into the sanc¬ 
 tuary to w'orship God. That was all the Sabbath the 
 negro had. The Sabbath market prevailed over the 
 whole of the West Indies, and there was more busi¬ 
 ness done on that day than on all the other days of the 
 week. All this was brought to an end by emanci¬ 
 pation. The negro can now spend the whole day with 
 his family in the house of prayer and in the worship 
 of God, according to the dictates of his conscience. 
 
 Then, sir, the negro is free from the liability to the 
 lash. It is true, that for some y'ears before emancipa¬ 
 tion, the law limited the master’s power of punishment 
 to the infliction of thirty-nine lashes at one time; but 
 the master had only to take care that none but slaves 
 were witnesses, and he might inflict three hundred 
 and ninety lashes instead of thirty-nine, without the 
 slightest apprehension of punishment, because the tes¬ 
 timony of a slave could not be received against his 
 master, whatever he might do. Now, sir, the power 
 of punishment was taken from the hands of the mas- 
 
19 
 
 ter, at the time of emancipation, and placed in the 
 hands of the magistrate, responsible to the public and 
 to the government for the manner in which he uses 
 his authority. 
 
 Then, sir, families are no longer liable to be scatter¬ 
 ed; the child cannot be sold away from the parent, 
 nor the wife from the husband, as used to be the case 
 in the days of slavery. Although, for some years, 
 this was prevented by the ameliorating measures in¬ 
 troduced by the British government, before emanci¬ 
 pation, yet in the times of ancient slavery, the wife 
 and child were sold and separated from each other, 
 and from the husband and father, without the slightest 
 feeling or compunction, just as now in the Southern 
 States of this Union. All this has passed away. 
 
 Then, sir, the negroes have their own houses. 
 Nearly all the black people in Jamaica are freehold¬ 
 ers. They have their own pieces of land, and their 
 own cottages erected upon the land, and there they 
 dwell, under their own vine and tig tree, no man dar¬ 
 ing to molest or make them afraid. 
 
 Then they have the disposal of their children. 
 They can send them to school, or take them to work 
 in the field, at their pleasure. 
 
 All these beneficial changes have been wrought by 
 emancipation ; and yet we are told that emancipation 
 has failed to improve the condition of the colored 
 race. Sir, it is one of the many falsehoods got up by 
 the pro-slavery party to blind the eyes of the friends 
 of humanity in this country, and promote the inter¬ 
 ests of slavery. It is a falsehood, and I denounce it as 
 such. Throughout the British West Indies, in every 
 island, the condition of the people is incomparably 
 superior, in all respects, to what it was in slavery. 
 
20 
 
 Then, I am told, if it has not ruined the laborer, it 
 has ruined the planter. Sir, I deny that as plainly as 
 I deny the other. I might maintain, with great pro¬ 
 priety, that if many West India proprietors were ru¬ 
 ined by emancipation, they only got what they de¬ 
 served. (Laughter.) I do not, however, take that po¬ 
 sition, but I say this: that it was not emancipation, 
 but slavery, that ruined those who were ruined. 
 They were ruined long before emancipation took 
 place. I would recommend our friends who can do 
 so to read Montgomery Martin’s History of the Brit¬ 
 ish Colonies, published in 1851,—a new edition of a 
 former work. There it is shown, to a demonstration, 
 that long'before Buxton and Wilberforce lifted their 
 voices in the British Senate to advocate the emanci¬ 
 pation of the negroes, the colonists throughout the 
 West Indies continually complained that they were 
 ruined. And no wonder that they were ruined. 
 There was a condition of things existing under slave¬ 
 ry, that must inevitably ruin any landholder under 
 the sun. Just look, sir, at the condition of a West 
 India estate under slavery. There w'ere four or five 
 hundred slaves. It is true, the master did not go to 
 much expense in providing them with luxuries, or 
 even with food, but he had to bestow upon them so 
 many yards of cloth a year, and several other small 
 articles : that was one item of expense. Then, to su¬ 
 perintend the labor of these slaves, there must be four 
 book-keepers, as they were called, one to superintend 
 the still, another the boiling-house, another took care 
 of the cattle on the estate, and another, if not two or 
 three, superintended the people in the field. All 
 these had to be fed and salaried. Then there was 
 
21 
 
 the overseer of the estate, with his harem, and he, 
 too, living at considerable expense out of the estate, 
 and at a high salary. Then, over all was the attor- 
 ne 3 % in the absence of the proprietor, who managed 
 the affairs of the estate, disposed of the produce, and 
 provided the cattle and other materials for working 
 the estate. Well, he took his commission out of eve¬ 
 ry thing the estate produced, and occupied, at his plea¬ 
 sure, what was called ‘ the great house,’ and having 
 his harem there. Then, sir, there was the proprietor, 
 with his family, living in France or England, in 
 princelj’ style,—and all this to be drawn out of the 
 produce of one estate. I should like to know wheth¬ 
 er there is an estate throughout the length arid breadth 
 of this country, that could sustain such a drain as 
 this,—whether there is any property that would not 
 be brought to ruin, with so many living upon it and 
 out of it. 
 
 It was that process that brought ruin upon many of 
 the West India proprietors. And, sir, emancipation 
 proved a boon to them. The compensation money 
 enabled them to lessen the mortgages on their estates. 
 By this expensive method of working the estates, 
 and this expensive style of living, the merchants, who 
 had also their commissions to take out of the estates, 
 became mortgagees, by making large advances on the 
 proiDerty ; so that, when emancipation came, there 
 was not one estate in fifty that was not mortgaged to 
 the full extent of its value. Emancipation came, and 
 instead of being a curse, it proved a blessing to the 
 proprietors. Suppose they had four hundred slaves ; 
 they would receive, on the average, not less than 
 twenty pounds for each,—about £8000, or $40,000 for 
 
22 
 
 the whole. It is true, the mortgagee took this com¬ 
 pensation money ; but then, the estate was relieved to 
 that extent, and many of the proprietors w'ere going 
 on with a fair prospect of working themselves clear of 
 their difficulties. Then came another sweeping change. 
 You remember the free trade policy adopted by the 
 British government during the ministry of Sir Robert 
 Peel. Among those measures w'as one equalizing the 
 sugar duty, and throwing the freed colonies of Bri- 
 taiji into an unequal competition, or a competition for 
 which they were not prepared, with Cuba and Brazil, 
 where the produce was raised by slave labor. I do not 
 find fault w'ith that free trade policy ; indeed, I do not 
 express any opinion upon it at all, for I am not much 
 of a politician ; but this change came upon the colonies 
 prematurely, before they were prepared for it, and the 
 consequent reduction of the price of sugar to an ex¬ 
 tent which rendered it unremunerative, forced some of 
 the planters to an abandonment of their estates, which 
 passed into the hands of the merchants. In Antigua, 
 some of the best estates on the island are held by the 
 merchants, who obtained them in that way. The 
 English house of Shand have several, which came 
 into their hands by the foreclosing of mortgages. It 
 was in this way, not by emancipation, but by slavery 
 and its concomitants, that the planters were ruined. 
 
 Now look at the West Indies as they are. In the 
 island of Jamaica, we are told, there is a satisfactory 
 state of things. I cannot speak of that island from 
 personal knowledge, because I have not been there 
 within the last ten years. But I can say, that before 
 I left, no less than fifty thousand colored people had 
 become freeholders, as the fruit of their own industry. 
 
23 
 
 Yet we are told these people will not work. How did 
 they obtain these freeholds, then? Some of their 
 houses are richly furnished, with mahogany bedsteads 
 and sideboards. How did they get these, expect as 
 the result of their own toil ? 
 
 I was in Jamaica when the railroad was built, 
 extending some fourteen or fifteen miles from the 
 city of Kingston. I was acquainted with the man¬ 
 ager of the works. There were considerable en¬ 
 gineering difficulties to be overcome. The road was 
 built entirely by colored people, and the manager of 
 the works told me that he could not desire people to 
 work better than they did; that he could obtain 
 workmen to any extent, and why ? Because, he says, 
 on Saturday evening, when they have finished their 
 work for the week, they have their wages. It was 
 not so upon the estates, sir; and that is the reason 
 why hundreds and thousands of the colored people of 
 Jamaica have retired from work on the sugar planta¬ 
 tions. I know that many hundreds of them were de¬ 
 frauded of their wages. One of those great planting 
 attorneys, who had some fifty or sixty large estates 
 under his care, made it his boast, in the presence of a 
 friend of mine, after the act of emancipation came 
 into force, that he made those estates pay well, because 
 he cheated the people out of half their wages, by one 
 method or another. That was the difficulty. After 
 the people were emancipated, before they obtained 
 land and houses of their own, they occupied the land 
 and houses owned by the proprietors, which they had 
 occupied when they were slaves, and the overseers 
 made them pay their rent three or four times over. 
 You must pay, they would say, so much in labor for 
 
24 
 
 the rent of your house ; then the wife was required 
 to pay an equal amount, and if there were two or 
 three adult members of the family, each one was re¬ 
 quired to pay the rent of the cottage in labor ; and 
 thus they managed to get out of the people rent four 
 times over in many cases, and in numberless instances, 
 three times and twice. I happened to occupy a posi¬ 
 tion which brought me much into contact wdth the 
 laborers, and therefore I knew of the operation of this 
 evil. The colored members of our ehurches contrib¬ 
 uted towards the maintenance of the churches, and 
 towards the maintenance of the ministers ; and very 
 frequently the missionaries were told, when they 
 could not give their usual contributions, that they 
 could not obtain their wages ; and upon one occasion, 
 a poor man, whom I knew well, whom I had taught to 
 read and write, who had promised five dollars for the 
 erection of a school-house and church in the neigh¬ 
 borhood in which he lived, came to me and told me 
 he was very sorry he could not pay the money, 
 because his employer had wronged him out of all he 
 had earned for several months,—and that employer 
 was a man who had a salary of one thousand pounds 
 in connection with an office which he held under gov¬ 
 ernment. The poor man had labored until his wages 
 amounted to sixteen doubloons—over two hundred 
 and fifty dollars, and then his employer took the bene¬ 
 fit of the Insolvent Debtors’ Act, and never paid him 
 or his fellow-laborers—there were two or three hun¬ 
 dred of them—one cent of what they had earned by 
 the labor of several months! Is it surprising, then, 
 that the colored people should choose to cultivate their 
 own two, three or five acres of land, and get what they 
 
25 
 
 could off that, and refuse to go to work upon a planta¬ 
 tion when they were expected to do the work of free¬ 
 men on the terms of slavery ? 
 
 These, sir, are the evils which have wrought out 
 those results which have seemed, for a time, to justify 
 the statement, that the people would not work in 
 Jamaica. They are passing away. A recent number 
 of the Anti-Slavery published at New York, 
 
 which was put into my hands a day or two ago, con¬ 
 tains a long report from one of the leading anti-slave¬ 
 ry men in this country,—Mr. Charles Tappan,—of a 
 visit which he has been making to the West Indies 
 Colonies within the last few months ; and he says, in 
 reference to Jamaica :— 
 
 ‘ The alleged want of labor is q false cry. To cul¬ 
 tivate the whole area of land at present lying waste in 
 all the colonies—except Barbadoes—would, indeed, 
 absorb any number of laborers; but the evidence is 
 overwhelming that no addition to their number is 
 necessary to meet the demand for the estates that are 
 actually under cultivation. Where labor is said to be 
 deficient, it can be traced to causes within the planters’ 
 control to remove. Of these, insufficient wages, un¬ 
 punctual payment of the same, or no payment at all, 
 are stated to be the chief. Immigration on the pres¬ 
 ent system is condemned as expensive and unsatisfac¬ 
 tory, injurious to the people who are introduced, and 
 to the native colonial population. 
 
 The allegations of idleness and immorality, which 
 have been propagated by The Times, are indignantly 
 repudiated as gross calumnies, and the writers are 
 challenged to produce the proof of their reckless state¬ 
 ments. The Committee feel satisfied that all unbiased 
 persons who read the annexed communications must 
 come to the conclusion that the negro population of 
 the West India colonies have been shamefully malign¬ 
 ed, and that the demand for “ immigrant labor” pro- 
 
26 
 
 ceeds from a desire to graft upon free-labor a sj-stem 
 of forced service, which is totally incompatible with 
 the spirit of the Act of Emancipation.’ 
 
 So much for Jamaica. I cannot say much about its 
 present condition; for I have not been there for ten 
 years. But, sir, I have been in Barbadoes, and there 
 I am laboring at present, as a minister amongst the 
 colored churches, and I can tell you the state of that 
 island. Sir, that island even in the most palmy days 
 of slavery, was never in such a state of prosperitj' as 
 it is now. This very year, although it has been an 
 unfavorable year, the long drought lessening the crop 
 of sugar, yet they have raised, with no greater amount 
 of labor than in the time of slavery, more than double 
 the amount of produce they ever raised under slavery. 
 That is the result of this year’s labor. 
 
 Now, let us look at the value of property in that 
 island. If emancipation has ruined the proprie¬ 
 tors or the work-people, if emancipation has proved a 
 failure, how is it, sir, that on the island of Barbadoes, 
 you cannot get an acre of land for less than four or 
 five hundred dollars in any part of the island ? That 
 is the truth, sir. I knew of an estate in my own 
 neighborhood, of not more than two or three hun¬ 
 dred acres, which was transferred to other hands for 
 £18,000—equal to nearly $90,000 of your money— 
 and that paid in cash. AVhere is there a farm of the 
 same extent in the United States, that will bring a 
 price equal to that ? I wanted to buy a piece of 
 land, within the last tw'elve months, to build a school- 
 house upon. It was nine or ten miles away from the 
 town, and consequently not a building lot, and there 
 was no circumstance associated with it to render it of 
 
27 
 
 extraordinary value. I was offered a piece,—the 
 eighth of an acre,—for how much, do you think ? 
 Four hundred dollars ! That was at the rate of $3,200 
 per acre for land in the country. 
 
 I occupy a mission station about nine miles out of 
 Bridgeton. I have two acres of land, upon which 
 stand the place of worship, the school-house, my 
 place of residence, and the teachers’ residence., I 
 wanted to enlarge our boundaries, and there were 
 two acres of land, belonging to a small estate in the 
 neighborhood, and separated from it by a road pass¬ 
 ing through. It joins my residence, and would be 
 very convenient in all respects, except that half of it 
 is very rocky; but the owner would not let me have 
 it for less than one thousand dollars, and I could not 
 make the purchase, because the price was so high. I 
 have known an estate of three® ur hundred acres 
 sold, within the last eight months, for £40,000. It is 
 situated very near the city, and that is the reason 
 why the price was so much higher than the other 
 one to which I have referred. These facts speak 
 volumes in regard to the ‘ ruin ’ of the British planters 
 b)' emancipation. (Applause.) 
 
 I will tell you what sort of ‘ ruin ’ has been brought 
 upon those islands. You will please to understand 
 that I did not furnish myself with facts before I came 
 away ; they come to me incidentally. I had no idea 
 that I should have a word to say upon the anti¬ 
 slavery question, or I would have come better pre¬ 
 pared with statistics. I am building some schools for 
 the children of our colored congregations ; and I have 
 been round begging money of the proprietors. Among 
 the rest, I w’aited upon a Mr. Carrington, who owuis 
 
28 
 
 two estates within sight of my sitting-room, and 
 he gave me forty dollars towards my object; and 
 while there, I learned these facts : that last j’ear, he 
 made on the two estates together, comprising between 
 six and seven hundi'ed acres, three hundred and 
 three hogsheads of sugar. This year, he resolved to 
 make an effort to extend his cultivation, and enlarge 
 the produce. He did so. He employed laborers to 
 cover all the rocks with soil, digging mud out of the 
 ditches and out of the pond, and covering up every 
 yard of naked rock, and planting canes upon it. He 
 built, instead of the old wind mills, which had been in 
 use from time immemorial, two steam engines, and put 
 up on one estate a double row of coppers for the man¬ 
 ufacture of the sugar. What is the result i He has 
 raised seven hundred and fifty hogsheads from those 
 two estates. Now, apart from the capital he ex¬ 
 pended in improvements, and in building, the mo¬ 
 lasses, the draining from the sugar, would go a long 
 way towards paying the working expenses of these 
 estates ; and he would carry into the English market 
 seven hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, and 
 would sell them, I dare say, at not less than twenty 
 pounds per hogshead, and would thus realize, from 
 those two estates, more than sixty thousand dollars 
 for the present year. That, sir, is the kind of ruin 
 that emancipation has brought upon the West India 
 islands. 
 
 So in Antigua. I lived three years in Antigua, be¬ 
 fore I went to Barbadoes, and a friend of mine there, 
 a member of my own church, bought an estate, that 
 w’as sold under a decree of Chancery, for £5000. 
 He has taken off three valuable crops, which have 
 
29 
 
 more than repaid the original purchase mone}’’; and 
 he has been offered £10,000 for the property, and re¬ 
 fused it. That is the kind of ‘ruin’ that has come 
 upon the West India islands because of emancipa¬ 
 tion ! 
 
 Then, sir, look at the moral condition of these is¬ 
 lands. The moral condition of Barbadoes will com¬ 
 pare favorably with that of any other civilized coun¬ 
 try. I believe the criminal statistics of Barbadoes, 
 for the last five or six years, would compare with any 
 country under heaven, without disadvantage. We 
 seldom hear of any thing Jike serious crimes. Then, 
 sir, the vice of intemperance is not prevalent among 
 the people. I have a membership of seventeen hun¬ 
 dred colored persons, and during the last two years I 
 have been there, I have not had one single case of 
 intemperance reported to me, in connection with our 
 disciplinary proceedings. 
 
 Then look at our churches. Every Sabbath, they 
 are inconveniently crowded by people anxious to re¬ 
 ceive instruction. I know of no people in the world 
 who will make snch efforts and exercise such self-de¬ 
 nial to obtain education for their children as the peo¬ 
 ple in Barbadoes. I will mention one little incident 
 that occurred only a day or two before I left to come 
 to this country. One of my own church members, a 
 colored man, had just finished manufacturing his lit¬ 
 tle portion of sugar, grown on a part of the half acre 
 of land on which stood his house, and on which he 
 raised the provisions for his family, and he brought 
 me six dollars, and requested that I would receive the 
 money in advance as school fees for his four children 
 for the next twelve months. That, sir, is the only 
 
30 
 
 instance I ever heard of in my life of a man, in his 
 condition, prepaying the education of his children for 
 twelve months. He was resolved, whatever else suf¬ 
 fered, his children should not suffer the loss of edu¬ 
 cation ; he has secured it for them for the next twelve 
 months. 
 
 The people are willing to do all they can to raise 
 themselves, and they do raise themselves. I have 
 heard since I have been here, that colored people in 
 this country do not make efforts to raise themselves 
 out of their degraded position. [A voice—‘ That is . 
 not true.’] If it be true, I do not wonder at it. I 
 do not see how any people can lift themselves up 
 against the weight of prejudice and discouragement 
 that seems to be cast upon them in this countr}*. 
 When I came into Boston, two or three weeks ago, I 
 went into a hotel, and the very first thing that arrested 
 my attention was this : A play-bill hung in the office 
 of the hotel, on which I read—‘ Colored people admit¬ 
 ted only to the gallery.’ That alone was sufficient to 
 satisfy me that they are laboring under discourage¬ 
 ments, difficulties and prejudices which must exercise 
 a blighting influence upon them, and must neces¬ 
 sarily keep them dowm. The colored people of the 
 British colonies have outlived all this, to a great ex¬ 
 tent. Lord Mulgrave, when he came out as Gover¬ 
 nor, in 1832, took noble ground in this respect. The 
 law which had placed the colored people of the col¬ 
 ony on an equality with the whites had just come 
 into operation. Formerly, in all those islands, as 
 now in the South, a colored man could not sit in the 
 jury box,—[A voice—‘ He cannot in the Northern 
 States ’]—nor on a coroner’s jury ; he was not allow- 
 
31 
 
 ed to exercise the elective franchise; he could not 
 hold any office under government, either civil or mil¬ 
 itary, and up to within a short time, he could not in¬ 
 herit property, except within a very limited amount. 
 Well, sir, a law was passed, and went into force, 
 which did away with all their legal disabilities; still, 
 they were subject to the same discouraging prejudi¬ 
 ces that I find existing here, to a great extent. A 
 white man would have felt himself degraded by sit¬ 
 ting down to table with a colored man. Lord Mul- 
 grave determined to put his foot upon this evil, and 
 he invited some of the most intelligent and respect¬ 
 able colored ladies and gentlemen,—those whose 
 wealth, intelligence and position in society entitled 
 them to such a mark of distinction,—to his parties. 
 (Applause.) He made it a j)oint to dance with color¬ 
 ed ladies himself, and he introduced colored gentle¬ 
 men to Ladj-^ Mulgrave as partners, with whom she 
 danced; and when some of the gentry gave the cold 
 shoulder to these colored guests, he caused it to be 
 intimated to them, that if they expected invitations 
 to the Government House, his guests must be treated 
 by them with the same respect and courtesy he man¬ 
 ifested towards them himself. (Loud cheers.) That, 
 sir, did more than any thing else I know of to put an 
 end to the reign of prejudice upon that island. Very 
 soon, the colored people began to mingle upon equal 
 terms with the whites; they met together in private 
 parties ; and soon the colored people, by the exercise 
 of the elective franchise, acquired a considerable de¬ 
 gree of political power; and now it would be the ruin 
 of any public man in Jamaica to have it known or 
 suspected that he cherishes any prejudice whatsoever 
 against his fellow-men on account of color. 
 
32 
 
 \ 
 
 Sir, the colored people, removed from under the 
 discouraging influences to which I have referred, show 
 themselves able to cope with the white man under any 
 circumstances. Take, for instance, the present head 
 of the Jamaica government—Edward Jordan, a col¬ 
 ored man; his dark skin and his frizzly hair show 
 him to be nearly allied to the African race on one side, 
 as he is to the white race on the other. I remember 
 the time when Ed-ward Jordan,—w'ho had acquii'ed 
 all the learning he had from our mission schools,— 
 stood within the shadow of the gallows, and had a 
 very narrow escape for his life,—and for what? It 
 was in the days of slavery, and he was a leader in 
 the anti-slavery party. He had taken an active part 
 in the agitatiop which ended in the removal of the 
 legal disabilities of the free colored people, and then he 
 stood up to agitate for the abolition of slavery, having 
 started a semi-weekly newspaper called the Jamaica 
 Watchman ; and in the beginning of 1832, there was 
 a pro-slavery man, w'ho had been a leader in that par¬ 
 ty, who suddenly came over to the anti-slavery party, 
 and took active measures to ameliorate the condition 
 of the colored people, and prepare the w’ay for the 
 abolition of slavery. Well, sir, in the newajjaper con¬ 
 troversy to which this gave rise, Mr. Jordan wrote the 
 following sentence:—‘ We are glad to see Mr. Beau¬ 
 mont coming over to the right side, and we shall be 
 glad with him and all the friends of bumanit)’’, to 
 give a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, 
 and bring down the system by the run, knock off the 
 fetters, and let the oppressed go free.’ That was the 
 sentence. The following -week, as he sat in the Su¬ 
 preme Court, reporting for his paper, to his utter as- 
 
33 
 
 tonishment, he heard his own name proclaimed by 
 the clerk, under indictment for a capital felony—‘ con¬ 
 structive treason.’ He had never heard a whisper of 
 it before, but he was taken from his seat, placed in the 
 felon’s dock, and arraigned upon that capital charge; 
 and it was with the utmost difficulty that his counsel, 
 Mr. Watkis, also a colored man, succeeded in get¬ 
 ting his trial postponed for two days, to prepare his 
 defence. The prosecution failed, because they could 
 not prove the publication of the paper ; but there 
 was a regular plot against the life of Mr. Jordan, to 
 which the Governor, Lord Belmore, (to his shame be 
 it said,) was a party, he having agreed, if Mr. Jordan 
 was convicted, to sign the warrant for his execution. 
 He was removed shortly after for incompetency, and 
 then came in the noble Lord Mulgrave, now Marquis 
 of Normandy, to whom I have referred. 
 
 But this effort to destroy Mr. Jordan onl}'- placed 
 him upon an eminence. The colored people rallied 
 around him. They had the control of the elections in 
 Kingston ; and at the next ballot, they elected him as 
 the representative of the commercial capital of Ja¬ 
 maica, which position he occupied for twenty years. 
 About the time I left the West Indies, he was called 
 into the upper branch of the legislature, the Council, 
 and now Mr. Jordan is Prime Minister of Jamaica, 
 the head of the Cabinet. He occupies the same po¬ 
 sition in Jamaica, as the Earl of Derby in England, 
 and is a man who commands the respect of all parties 
 and all colors in the community. 
 
 Then, sir, there is Mr. Richard Hill. He has been 
 for twenty years the head of the stipendiary magis¬ 
 trates’ department in that island, and a man of well- 
 
34 
 
 known ability and information ; indeed, he is looked 
 up to by all parties on the island as authority in all 
 matters of natural science. Mr. Hill is also colored, 
 only one remove from a black man; that is, he is the 
 child of a black mother, having a colored father. 
 Mr. Hill is a man whom any one might be proud to 
 call his friend ; a man of masterly intellect, a perfect 
 gentleman, and every thing that a man ought to be, 
 and I may add, he is a Christian man. 
 
 Then there is upon the judicial bench of Jamaica 
 Mr. Montcrief,—also only one remove from a black 
 man. His father, who was a man of some wealth, 
 sent him to England, and gave him a liberal education ; 
 he was admitted to practice in one of the Inns of 
 Court, made his w'ay to the Jamaica bar, and then 
 to the bench, and is now the second amongst the 
 judges of the colony. 
 
 Sir, place the colored man along side, on equal 
 terms, and he will compete with the white. How has 
 Mr. Jordan forced his way? Not by favor, sir, but 
 by talent, and the exercise of that talent. How have 
 Mr. Hill and Mr. Montcrief won the positions they 
 now fill ? Not by favor, sir, but by competing with 
 the white man, with all the advantages of education 
 and wealth and interest in his favor. Sir, my observa¬ 
 tion goes to show this : that they make good mechan¬ 
 ics, very good magistrates, (for more than half the 
 magistrates in the island of Jamaica are colored men,) 
 efficient legislators, (I suppose not less than a dozen 
 in the Legislature of Jamaica are men of African de¬ 
 scent,—two of them ‘ perfect Africans,’ to use an ex¬ 
 pression common here; one of them has occupied the 
 
35 
 
 position he fills twelve or fourteen years, the other, 
 ten years,—and occupied them respectably and effi- 
 cientlyO They make, also, good medical practition¬ 
 ers, One of the cleverest men I knew in the island of 
 Jamaica, and a man who stood first in one branch of 
 practice, was a colored man. They make very excel¬ 
 lent schoolmasters. All my teachers are colored men, 
 and I would not exchange them for white men. If I 
 had the choice of a white or colored man as a teacher 
 in the West Indies, I should decidedly give the pref¬ 
 erence to the colored man, on this account; he can 
 better accommodate himself to his position. In nearly 
 all cases where men come out from Europe to take the 
 position of schoolmasters, they turn out to be failures. 
 We can only conduct our schools efficiently by hav¬ 
 ing and training colored teachers; and we do that, 
 and we find the colored man, in every walk of life, 
 able to compete, and that successfully, with men of 
 fairer skin. 
 
 Then what about the ladies ? I can say a good 
 word for them.. They make capable housekeepers, 
 devoted, faithful wives, tender and judicious mothers. 
 Sir, it is not an uncommon thing for white men to 
 marry colored ladies. I have known numerous in¬ 
 stances of this kind, and I have seer, these colored la¬ 
 dies presiding at the table of their husbands with as 
 much grace and dignity as any white lady could dis¬ 
 play in that position. Sir, give them the opportunity, 
 and they will show themselves to advantage, whether 
 male or female. (Applause.) 
 
 I do not know, sir, that I should feel justified in 
 dwelling any longer upon this theme ; I fear I have 
 
36 
 
 wearied this audience. However, you asked me to 
 enter, in detail, upon this question of the failure of 
 emancipation ; and I think, although I have done it 
 very lamely, I have stated facts which go to prove 
 beyond dispute, that emancipation in the British col¬ 
 onies is no failure. (Applause.)