care taken of the slaves in sickness, and of the boasted and frequent attendance of the medical men on the different properties, I have never seen any very flattering specimens, though I have been on a great many plantations, and have seen plenty of doctors. Their hot-houses, or hospitals, are, generally speaking, filthy receptacles; they are very happily styled hot-houses, for they are hot enough; as the hospital is, on most estates, a confined room, very often an earthen floor: in this is a platform of boards, raised two or three feet high, like the soldier's guard-bed, on which the sick lie down in their own clothes, covered sometimes with a blanket, and sometimes not: on some large estates, they have a superior kind of hospital, on a first floor, with better accommodations. The hot-house is often the place where the Negroes are also confined in the stocks; so that it is both hospital and gaol.'

There is on every estate what the Negroes call a hot-house, or hospital, which a medical practitioner is expected to visit once or twice a week. The Negroes have generally a great dislike to being shut up in this hot-house, where they are separated from the kindness of their friends; and would prefer being in their own houses, even though in a miserable state.' (Cooper, 27.)

The same writer (see Facts, &c. by Thomas Cooper,' 1824. 8, 35) asserts: The state of morals is as bad as can well be imagined. With scarcely any exception, all the Whites, whether residing on the plantations or otherwise, live in a state of open and avowed concubinage. The general profligacy, in this respect, is perfectly notorious and undisguised. The morals of nineteen out of twenty White men are ruined before they have been a month in the island. They get into habits of debauchery, and every idea of religion vanishes.-Even the clergy in Jamaica, in some instances, fall into this horrid impurity of manners; and that too, without being expelled from their situations in the church. Serious attention to religion is out of the question. The man is fallen into the condition of an animal. Persons who are received into the best society of the place speak of having been drunk, and of getting drunk, without apparently feeling any sense of shame.-What can we expect of an inexperienced halfeducated youth of eighteen, placed in the way of such tremendous temptations? Every day the most indecent sights are brought before his eyes, and the most unhallowed sounds rung in his ears.'' It is a dreadful consideration, that all the females, out of a population of nearly 350,000 souls, should become the instruments of licentious gratification. Black as this representation is, it is not blacker than I have often heard of West-India society by old standards in Jamaica; and it appears to me to be nothing more than what might be expected to flow naturally from the slave system.'

'It is usual, in these colonies,' says Dr. Pinckard, for a

person to take a Negro, or more frequently a Mulatto or Mestee woman, as housekeeper and companion; and if he have children by her, and cannot afford, or does not choose, to be at the expense of sending them to Europe to be educated, he derives no dishonour from breeding up the sons as mechanics, and giving out the daughters in keeping to his friends; and so commonly is this practice established, that no feelings of remorse seem to attach to it on the contrary, it is deemed the best provision the parent can make for his daughter.'

Truly distressing,' says Mr. Bickell, to a Christian mind is it, to witness the demoralizing effects brought on the White part of the population; nearly the whole of whom live in a state of opened and acknowledged, and even boasted, fornication. It is a well-known and notorious fact, that very few of the White men in the West Indies marry, except a few professional men, and some few merchants in the towns; and here and there, in the country, a proprietor or large attorney. Most of the merchants and shopkeepers in the towns, and the whole of the deputy planters (namely, overseers) in all parts of the country, have what is called a housekeeper, who is their concubine or mistress, and is generally a free woman of Colour; but the book-keepers, who are too poor and too dependent to have any kind of establishment, generally take some Mulatto or Black female slave, from the estate where they are employed; or live in a more general state of licentiousness.-This is so very common a vice, and so far from being accounted scandalous, that it is looked upon by every person as a matter of course; and if a newly-arrived young man happens to have brought a few moral ideas with him from Great Britain, he is soon deprived of them by taunt and ridicule, and is, in a short time, unblushingly amalgamated into the common mass of hardened and barefaced licentiousness. This does not depreciate the privileged White men even in the eyes of most Creole White ladies; for they often pay visits to the mistress of a relative, and fondle and caress the little ones: nay, I have known some married ladies pay visits to the kept mistresses of rich men, who were not relatives, though they would not look upon a more respectable woman of the same colour, who might be married to a Brown man.— -What a horrible picture is this! In Jamaica alone, there are seven or eight thousand White men; nearly the whole of whom live in this wicked state, in defiance of the commands of God, and in spite of the examples and precepts inculcated upon their minds in the mother country.' (104-6.)

"

Mr. Newton also tells us, that a parallel to all this enormity existed, as one of the many evils attendant on the middle passage: When the women are taken on board a ship, naked, trembling, terrified; they are often exposed to the wanton rudeness of White savages. The poor creatures cannot understand

K

the language they hear; but the looks and manners of the speakers are sufficiently intelligible. In imagination, the prey is divided on the spot; and only reserved till opportunity offers. Where resistance or refusal would be utterly in vain even the solicitation of consent is seldom thought of. But I forbear. This is not a subject for declamation. (vi. 534.)

The wide-wasting wickedness here described was unknown among the pagans of ancient Greece; for, by the Athenian law, female slaves could demand an exchange of masters, if any attempt had been made on their chastity. (Ramsay, 22.)

IX.-page 82.

The Religious Instruction of the Slaves in the West-India Colonies, advocated and defended, &c. &c. By Richard Watson.' 1824. 7, 8.

In the Maroon war (1795-6), the slaves remained faithful and peaceable; and their masters owe them an incalculable debt of gratitude for their fidelity. No symptoms of disobedience appeared; and a solitary White man, left in charge of a plantation, while his brother planters were performing the duty of soldiers, slept in safety among two, three, or four hundred slaves.' (Stewart, 15.)- The Negroes are patient, cheerful, and commonly submissive; capable of grateful attachments, where uniformly well treated; and generally affectionate towards their friends, kindred, and offspring. During the ambuscade attack of the Maroons on Lieutenant-Colonel Sandford's party, gentleman's Negro servant, being close to his master, and observing a Maroon's piece levelled at him, he instantly threw himself between him and the danger, and received the shot in his body.' (Stewart, 249, 254.)- The Negroes have a natural shrewdness and genius, susceptible of culture and improvement.' -They often express, in their own way, a wonderfully acute perception of things.' -There cannot be a doubt but that, by the culture of education, they are capable of the higher attainments of the mind.'- Touissant L'Ouverture, an uneducated slave, acquitted himself, as a general and statesman, in a manner that astonished and confounded those who maintained that Negroes were incapable of intellectual improvement.' (Stewart, 256, 257, 265.)

These are only specimens of the justice done to the despised Africans by a colonial writer. Evidence to the same effect, from Golberry, Mungo Parke (whose Travels were edited by Bryan Edwards), Sir James Craig, Barrow, and others, may be found in Wilberforce's Letter, 64-70, &c. and in the Appendix 363370, 372-376, et seq.-Let the sceptical reader also consult

the elaborate and satisfactory dissertations of Ramsay on the natural capacity of slaves; with his refutation of Hume, and the comparative anatomists; in the fourth chapter of his Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves;' published in 1784. This is now a scarce book. It was the result of about twenty years' experience in the colonies, and above fourteen years' particular application to the subject; and was originally drawn up in consequence of a letter to its author, from Lady Middleton (of the Gambier family), wife of Sir Charles Middleton, afterwards Lord Barham.

On the capacities of Africans, and in confirmation of Mr. Watson, see the late Dr. Mason Good's Book of Nature,' 1826. ii. 109-112.

X.-page 90.

On the subject of the separation of families, the reader's attention is requested to the following statement.

In the Parliamentary Papers of May 9, 1826, is contained a return of forty-four persons escheated to the Crown, in the island of Barbadoes, from 1821 to 1825, inclusive, which discloses these particulars :

A Negro, of the name of John Thomas Atherley, had purchased his own freedom, and had also succeeded in redeeming his wife and four children from slavery, by the fruits of his own industry; when he died. Though he had been able to pay their owner the price of their manumission, he had not been able, be-fore his death, to pay the enormous tax, which, in Barbadoes, was imposed on manumissions; and he had omitted to make a will. His wife and children, therefore, were regarded as his own slaves; and as such, he having no legal heirs, were escheated to the Crown. And they would infallibly have been sold for the benefit of the Crown, but for the interposition of a benevolent individual, who made such representations, on the subject to his Majesty's Government at home, as produced at first a suspension of their sale, and afterwards their entire liberation. These poor creatures, however, after all their fears and sufferings, were made to pay the heavy expenses attending the cession of their liberty, as well as the finding of his Majesty's title to them. Is it possible to conceive a more cruel case than this would have been, under the operation of the laws of Barbadoes, but for the intervention of the Government?-There occurs one other case of manumission, by an order of the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury; and in the case of eighteen more, their fate is suspended till his Majesty's pleasure shall be taken. Surely it cannot be a matter of doubt what that plea

sure will be.-All, however, of these escheats have not been so fortunate as to have their case made known to the Government; and the following statement of the sales of individuals, for the benefit of his Majesty, will be read with pain and disgust by every loyal mind.

On the 7th of August, 1823, nineteen individuals became escheats of the Crown; and in eleven days from that time—namely, on the 18th of August, 1823-they were all sold by public auction, with the exception of two, who effected their escape; and the net proceeds of their sale were paid into the Treasury of Great Britain. The transaction, bad enough in itself, will be in no small degree aggravated, when we consider all the circumstances of it, and especially the cruel separation of families which was sanctioned by the agents of the Crown. The following are the particulars of this opprobrious sale, as they are given under the official signature of Lionel Parke, ReceiverGeneral of his Majesty's Casual Revenue.' Then follows a list of seventeen of either sex, and all ages, with the prices at which they were severally sold-as, for example, Lubbah, wife of Abel, and mother of his children, to Henry Tudor, for 387.; Thomas, son of Abel and Lubbah, to H. Mozeley, for 51.—The price at which all the seventeen persons were sold is stated in Barbadoes currency, and amounts to 6021., or about 4017. sterling. How much of this money, after passing through the hands of escheaters, receivers, marshals, counsel, attorneys, &c. came into the Royal Treasury of Great Britain, we should be curious to know. It is the price of blood, and we trust will not rest there without inquisition. What is it but a slave trade, more disgraceful than even that of Africa, by which the King of Great Britain has been made to enrich himself, at the rate of 10%. or 15. a head if so much, by the sale, into perpetual slavery of seventeen of his liege subjects, whose dearest ties have been burst asunder by the process?

XI.-page 100.

I beg particularly to direct the reader's attention to the above extracts, and most especially to the intelligent and luminous statement of Mr. Chaderton. He has expressed, with the utmost precision, the difficulties of the spiritual enterprise in which a missionary embarks, the moment he sets foot on a plantation. My own experience, as a private instructor of slaves, perfectly corresponds to his statement. Had I room, I should be glad to insert the testimonies of the Rev. Messrs. Orders os Gittens, Payne, and Hutchins, of Barbadoes; and of Messrc. Jenkins, Bowerbank, and West, of Jamaica. Their evidence may be