They testify positively--and not only planters, but all other classes of men likewise--that the slaves of Barbadoes were fit for entire freedom in 1834, and that they might have been emancipated then with perfect safety.

Whatever may have been the sentiment of the Barbadians relative to the necessity of preparation before the experiment was made, it is clear that now they have no confidence either in the necessity or the practicability of preparatory schemes.
But we cannot close our remarks upon the apprenticeship system without noticing one good end which it has undesignedly accomplished, i.e., _the illustration of the good disposition of the colored people_.

We firmly believe that if the friends of emancipation had wished to disprove all that has ever been said about the ferocity and revengefulness of the negroes, and at the same time to demonstrate that they possess, in a pre-eminent degree, those other qualities which render them the fit subjects of liberty and law, they could not have done it more triumphantly than it has been done by the apprenticeship.

_How_ this has been done may be shown by pointing out several respects in which the apprenticeship has been calculated to try the negro character most severely, and to develop all that was fiery and rebellious in it.
1.

The apprenticeship removed that strong arm of slavery and substituted no adequate force.