Special Justice Everard, who went through the district during the first two weeks of August, 1834, and who was the first special justice to read and explain the new law to them, had told them that the law gave to them the extra four and a half hours on the Friday, and some of the proprietors and managers, who were desirous of preparing their people for the coming change, had likewise explained it so; but, most unfortunately, the governor issued a proclamation, justifying the masters in withholding the four and a half hours on that day, and substituting any other half day, or by working them eight hours per day, they might deprive them altogether of the advantage to be derived from the extra time, which, by the abolition of Sunday marketing, was almost indispensable to people whose grounds, in some instances, were many miles from their habitations, and who were above thirty miles from Kingston market, where prices were fifty per cent.

more than the country markets in their favor for the articles they had to dispose of, and correspondingly lower for those they had to purchase.

To be in time for which market, it was necessary to walk all Friday night, so that without the use of the previous half day, they could not procure their provisions, or prepare themselves for it.

The deprivation of the half of Friday was therefore a serious hardship to them, and this, coupled to the previous assurance of their masters, and Special Justice Everard, that they were entitled to it, made them to suspect a fraud was about being practised on them, which, if they did not resist, would lead to the destruction of the remaining few privileges they possessed.

The resistance was very general, but without violence; whole gangs leaving the fields on the afternoon of Friday; refusing to take any other afternoon, and sometimes leaving the estates for two or three days together.