Catalogue reference: CO 295/121 folio 234. Crown Copyright.
TRINIDAD.
By His Excellency THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR GEORGE FITZGERALD HILL,
L.S. Baronet Colonel of the Londonderry Regiment of Militia,
Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the said
G.F.HILL Island and its Dependencies, Vice-Admiral thereof, &c. &c.
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A PROCLAMATION.
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I, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR GEORGE FITZGERALD HILL, Baronet, Lieutenant-Governor of the said Island, having received the commands of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, through the Colonial Secretary of
State, to communicate to the Apprenticed Labourers of this Colony the feelings of Interest and solicitude entertained by Her Majesty and all Classes of Her Subjects for their welfare, and their moral and religious improvement, and at
the same time to explain to them their duties, and to guard them against the misconceptions which might arise from imperfect or erroneous information communicated to them, do hereby declare and proclaim, that Her Most Gracious
Majesty and both Houses of the British Parliament, Her Majesty’s Ministers, and all Classes of Her Subjects in Great Britain, have felt, and continue to feel the deepest interest in the Improvement and Prosperity of the Apprenticed
Labourers in this Island; and that this feeling has been much increased by the quiet, orderly, and industrious behaviour by which they have, in general, been distinguished since the commencement of their term of Apprenticeship on
the 1st of August, 1834. It is this feeling which induced Her Majesty the Queen and Her Parliament to pay a large sum of money to their respective Employers, to secure the entire Freedom of all Apprentices in Six Years after the 1st of August, 1834, and the Freedom of all Domestics and Tradesmen in Four Years from that time. But as information has reached me that the Field Apprentices on some Estates believe that their period of Apprenticed Labour for their Employers is to cease on the 1st of August next, it has become my duty to undeceive them, and to tell them the Truth.
