The force of this remark will be better seen by referring to the nature and working of the apprenticeship as described in the book of Messrs.

Thome and Kimball.

We have only room to say that the masters universally regarded the system as a part of the compensation or bonus to the slaveholder and not as a preparatory school for the slave.

By law they were granted a property in the uncompensated _labor_ of the slaves for six years; but the same law, by taking away the sole means of enforcing this labor, in fact threw the masters and slaves into a six years' quarrel in which they stood on something like equal terms.

It was surely not to be wondered if the parties should come out of this contest too hostile ever to maintain to each other the relation of employer and employed.