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Rt. Hon.

Ford Granville Somerset, M. P
From the Neether.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

PRESENT CONDITION

OF THE

ISLAND OF TRINIDAD,

AND THE

ACTUAL STATE OF THE EXPERIMENT

OF

NEGRO EMANCIPATION.

BY

WILLIAM HARDIN BURNLEY,

CHAIRMAN OF THE AGRICULTURAL AND IMMIGRATION SOCIETY
IN THAT COLONY.

CALIFORNIA

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

UNIV. OF

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

STATE AND CONDITION OF THE COLONY

OF

TRINIDAD.

[The Figures in the margin refer to the Questions in the Evidence.]

SEVEN years have now passed away since slavery was abolished throughout the British dominions by an Act of the Imperial Parliament; and three years have elapsed since the labouring population of the West Indies have been put into possession of social and political advantages, unexampled in extent at any period of history.

Yet the question, "Has the great experiment of negro emancipation succeeded?" is still asked, not merely by ordinary inquirers, but by philosophers and statesmen who have access to all printed documents, private or official, and whose chief business is investigation. It is impossible that doubts could exist with respect to important transactions in such near dependencies, where seventeen governors are writing and forwarding despatches by every packet, and from whence numerous public journals, hundreds of letters, and many ocular witnesses are continually arriving, unless the truth were obscured by the misrepresentations of party spirit.

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