Our solicitude on entering the Island of Antigua was intense. Charged with a mission so nearly concerning the political and domestic institutions of the colony, we might well be doubtful as to the manner of our reception. We knew indeed that slavery was abolished, that Antigua had rejected the apprenticeship, and adopted entire emancipation. We knew also, that the free system had surpassed the hopes of its advocates. But we were in the midst of those whose habits and sentiments had been formed under the influences of slavery, whose prejudices still clinging to it might lead them to regard our visit with indifference at least, if not with jealousy. We dared not hope for aid from men who, not three years before, were slaveholders, and who, as a body, strenuously resisted the abolition measure, finally yielding to it only because they found resistance vain. Mingled with the depressing anxieties already referred to, were emotions of pleasure and exultation, when we stepped upon the shores of an unfettered isle. We trod a soil from which the last vestige of slavery had been swept away! To us, accustomed as we were to infer the existence of slavery from the presence of a particular hue, the numbers of negroes passing to and fro, engaged in their several employments, denoted a land of oppression; but the erect forms, the active movements, and the sprightly countenances, bespoke that spirit of disinthrallment which had gone abroad through Antigua. On the day of our arrival we had an interview with the Rev. James Cox, the superintendent of the Wesleyan mission in the island. He assured us that we need apprehend no difficulty in procuring information, adding, "We are all free here now; every man can speak his sentiments unawed. We have nothing to conceal in our present system; had you come here as the _advocates of slavery_ you might have met with a very different reception." At the same time we met the Rev. N. Gilbert, a clergyman of the English Church, and proprietor of an estate. Mr. G. expressed the hope that we might gather such facts during our stay in the island, as would tend effectually to remove the curse of slavery from the United States. He said that the failure of the crops, from the extraordinary drought which was still prevailing, would, he feared, be charged by persons abroad to the new system. "The enemies of freedom," said he, "will not ascribe the failure to the proper cause. It will be in vain that we solemnly declare, that for more than thirty years the island has not experienced such a drought. Our enemies will persist in laying all to the charge of our free system; men will look only at the amount of sugar exported, which will be less than half the average. They will run away with this fact, and triumph over it as the disastrous consequence of abolition."