There was certainly a wonderful coincidence of vision--the same abandonment of labor, the same preying upon provision grounds; the same violence, bloodshed and great loss of life among the negroes themselves! However, the special magistrate appeared to see a little further than the local magistrate, even to the _end_ of the carnage, and to the re-establishment of industry, peace and prosperity.

The evil, he was confident, would soon cure itself.
One remark of the special magistrate was worthy a prophet.

When asked if he thought there would be any serious disaffection produced among the praedials by the emancipation of the non-praedials in 1838, he said, he thought there would not be, and assigned as the reason, that the praedials knew all about the arrangement, and did not _expect to be free_.

That is, the field apprentices knew that the domestics were to be liberated two years sooner than they, and, without inquiring into the grounds, or justice of the arrangement, _they would promptly acquiesce in it_! What a fine compliment to the patience and forbearance of the mass of the negroes.

The majority see the minority emancipated two years before them, and that, too, upon the ground of an odious distinction which makes the domestic more worthy than they who "bear the heat and burthen of the day," in the open field; and yet they submit patiently, because they are told that it is the pleasure of government that it should be so! The _non-praedials_, too, have their noble traits, as well as the less favored agriculturalists.