slaves were to serve a sort of apprenticeship--three-fourths of their
time was for a certain number of years to remain at the disposal of the
masters; the other fourth was their own, to be paid for at a fixed rate
of wages." The planters were to be duly compensated out of the national
treasury.

It was during the discussion of these resolutions that Mr. Gladstone
made his maiden speech in Parliament. It was made in answer to what
seemed a personal challenge by Lord Howick, Ex-Under Secretary for the
colonies, who, opposing gradual emancipation, referred to an estate in
Demerara, owned by Mr. Gladstone's father, for the purpose of showing
that great destruction of life had taken place in the West Indies owing
to the manner in which the slaves were worked. In reply to this Mr.
Gladstone said that he would meet some of Lord Howick's statements with
denials and others with explanations. He admitted that he had a
pecuniary interest in it as a question of justice, of humanity, and of
religion. The real cause of the decrease, he said, was owing, not to the
increased cultivation of sugar, but to the very large proportion of
Africans upon the estate. When it came into his father's possession it
was so weak, owing to the large number of negroes upon it, that he was
obliged to add two hundred more people to the gang. It was well known
that negroes were imported into Demarara and Trinidad up to a later
period than into any of the colonies; and he should at a proper time, be
able to prove that the decrease on his father's plantation, Vreeden
Hoop, was among the old Africans, and that there was an increase going
on in the Creole population, which would be a sufficient answer to the
charges preferred. The quantity of sugar produced was small compared to
that produced on other estates. The cultivation of cotton in Demarara
had been abandoned, and that of coffee much diminished, and the people
engaged in these sources of production had been employed in the