In 1833, the act for the abolition of slavery was passed; and it cannot be denied, that the feelings of distrust and jealousy with which government had so long regarded the Assembly and their constituents, accompanied its introduction, progress, and details. They accompanied also the legislative measures adopted by the Assembly for carrying into effect its provisions, and especially those for establishing and regulating the apprenticeship. The manner in which the relative rights and duties of master and apprentices were discharged, was watched and examined with the same unfavourable feelings as if there had existed a design to make the apprenticeship a cover for the revival of slavery--an object which, even had there been persons wicked enough to have desired it, could never have been accomplished. There were persons in Jamaica exercising a powerful influence over the minds of the apprentices, who proclaimed to them their belief, that it was the design of their masters to reduce them to slavery, and who appealed to the suspicion and jealousy of the government as justifying and confirming that belief. Such was the influence of those feelings, that two attempts were made in Parliament to abolish the apprenticeship. They were unsuccessful; but enough had been said and done to fill the minds of the apprentices with the greatest distrust and suspicion of their masters. In June 1838, the Assembly was especially convened for the purpose of abolishing it. The governor, as the organ of her Majesty's government, distinctly told the Assembly that it was impossible to continue the apprenticeship. "I pronounce it," he says, "physically impossible to maintain the apprenticeship, with any hope of successful agriculture." The state to which the colony had been reduced, is told in the answer of the Assembly to this address: "Jamaica does, indeed, require repose; and we anxiously hope, that should we determine to remove an unnatural servitude, we shall be left in the exercise of our constitutional privileges, without interference." The colony was thus compelled to abolish the apprenticeship, although it had formed part of the plan of emancipation--not only that it might contribute to the compensation awarded for the abolition of slavery, but that it might become that intermediate state which might prepare the apprentices for absolute and unrestricted freedom, and afford the aid of experience in such legislation as was adapted to their altered condition. It was again and again described by the Secretary of State for the colonies, in moving his resolutions, "to be necessary not only for the security of the master, but for the welfare of the slave." The apprenticeship was thus abruptly terminated two years before the expiration of the period fixed by the act of the Imperial Parliament for its duration, before any new system of legislation had been adopted, and when the emancipated population had been taught to regard the planters with far less kindly feelings than those which they entertained in their state of slavery.