The last accounts from the West Indies are unfavourable. At
St. Xitt's and Trinidad, serious disturbances have occurred: A proposition was made in the Jamaica House of Assembly a few days before the last accounts were despatched, which, if adopted, would go far to neutralize the spirit of the Emancipation Act. Me. BARCLAY was its author; and the nature of the proposition will be seen from the following extract from his speech.
" A committee appointed to bring in a bill could not, according to the usage and custom of the House, take evidence which was most essential to the object be had in view, in showing beyond all doubt that the Negroes were not work- ing, and. would not work any part of their own time, for any wages that could be afforded to them ; that two-thirds of the Pimento crop (the only one that had yet come in) had been lost ; that the attempt at sugar-making, where it Lad been tried, had been almost an entire failure; and, in short, that the country was positively ruined and lost, unless some regulations were provided to compel the Negroes to work some reasonable portion of their own time, for fair and reasonable wages. In this course, he saw nothing repug- aant to the British Act : it was taking away nothing from the Negroes that had been given to them, but simply saying they must work for their own benefit."
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